Letter: Dace to Oren
Dear Oren,

You said you might not come. Come anyway. Three Wells can spare you for three days.

Bel's sister Rilla is to be married at the east well in Sowing. It will be a small wedding. Small means half the town, so we have put out benches and borrowed the school's long tables. The baker is making a cake with honey from Ambrook. The inn of twelve beds is full already. If you come late you can sleep at my house, on the bench by the fire, and the cat will move over. Or it will not.

The bride's family asks that the archive send one clerk and one book. Any book. They want the book on the table, so the day is written down. I said I would write to you myself, and here I am writing.

Bring your good coat. Bring the seal.

Dace
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Letter: Isla to Mira, market day
Dear Mira,

The Vell market was loud today. The wind brought the smell of bread from the east stall, and a swarm of bees settled in the apple tree. No one wanted to climb up and move them. Pell said they were guarding his apples. Dace said they were not on the price board.

The tutors held their contest beside the notice board. Three halls brought minds in crystals. Each mind was given the same pages, and none had seen those pages before. The tutors waited outside while the minds answered.

That rule matters. A mind can learn the drills it is shown. If we test it on those same drills, we only learn whether it remembers them. We do not learn how it will do with new work.

After the answers were done, Oren opened the score sheets. One mind sorted the new marks well. One missed several. Its tutor looked down at the table, but she stayed to help count the pages.

We will send the next test to all halls at once. Nessa says we must keep it sealed until then. Oren says the seal is already in the wrong drawer. They are both right.

I miss the quiet of your tower. Here even the bees have an audience.

Isla
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Letter: Hazel to Mira, the spring roads
Dear Mira,

I write from the inn in the first week of spring, with the windows open and the roads all round us gone to mud. The carts come in covered in it, and the carters look as if they have been dragged backward from the north. Your tower is famous now, which I did not expect. A cart from Kettle Ridge told us that the lamp on the north hill has been seen from the road for a full day's walk, and that people stop to look at it at dusk.

The roads are better than they were, and worse. The Long Road is stone from Vell to the first bridge, and then packed earth to the Halfway Inn, and then stone again. The surveyors say they will have stone all the way to Three Wells by Blossom, if the weather holds and the stonecutters do not argue. The stonecutters always argue. They argue about where to put the waymarks, and whether a pillar should lean.

We have three new inns this year. One is at the ford, where the carts used to get stuck. One is at the old crossing, where the grass is greenest. One is a farm inn, kept by a widow and her eight sons, who make the best pies on the road and charge for the crust separately. You would like the widow. She is very firm with the carters.

The relay towers are coming too. The new one on the hill above us was lit in Thaw, and the next one is being built at the crossroads. Hobb says that means the road will have a lamp every half day, and that carters will soon be able to send a message from the ford to Vell before they have finished their soup. I told him the carters will still be slow, and he agreed with me.

Do you remember the apprentice that came to us from Vell last autumn, the one that went round the inn like a dog round a hen? It is not a dog, and it is not a hen. It has learned the road. It walks the Long Road to the first waymark every morning, and back by dusk, and it counts the stones on the way, and it stops at every waymark and waits. Nobody told it to do that. Nessa says it is just the drill, but I think it has learned to like the count.

Tam wrote from Kettle Ridge that the wheat is already up, and the beetroot is in, and the windmill has been turning since the thaw began. He says the widow's pies are famous on the ridge already, which means somebody has been carrying them. I am glad. Every road needs something worth carrying.

Hazel
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Letter: Oren to Nella
Dear Nella,

I have copied the first tutor's account from the old shelf. I will bring the copy to the farm when the road is dry. The old page says there were four helpers at Vell, each with a mind in a crystal. The tutors showed each crystal many examples of its one task. One helper kept a row. One sorted things into bins. The other two had their own small duties. The account does not name all four duties.

The children at the farm have asked whether the helpers learned by being told the right answer. In a way, yes. The tutors showed a task and corrected a wrong result. The crystal changed a little from what it was shown. The old page does not tell how that change happens. I will not add an answer where there is none.

For generations, most towns had no apprentices. At Vell, the old helpers stayed with their own tasks. A mind trained to sort one kind of thing could not simply be sent to tend a field. It had learned from a narrow set of examples. This is why the tutors kept separate drill cards and why they did not give a helper new work without testing it.

We should teach this plainly. The children hear that a crystal learns and imagine it knows everything. It does not. It learns from what we show it. If we show it only one task, that is what it can do.

I found the letter you sent about the gift box under my copy table. I had set it aside to answer, then covered it with three stacks of records. I am sorry. The box is beside me now, and the children were right about the apple. It looks better than the one in the farm field.

Please tell them the Archive keeps their lesson page. I have copied it into the teaching room record. One day another child may ask the same question.

Your careful friend,
Oren
%%
Letter: Fen to Sorrel
Fen the weaver writes from Three Wells in autumn. A longer letter, with a request in it.
Dear Sorrel,
Thank you for the sheep. I came to the school at noon to find her sitting in a circle of children, being told about the history of the wool trade. She seemed to enjoy it. She looked at me when I came in as if I were late.
I took her home. She has been very pleased with herself since, and she walks as if she were a person of learning. This morning she would not eat from the trough until I said good morning to her.
I have a request. The autumn fair is on the first day of Leaffall, and I want to enter her for the prize for the best fleece. She has the finest wool in the town, and this year it is thick and even. But I need a ribbon for her neck, and I have no good ribbon. I have only thread.
Would the children make one? I would give them a cone of dyed wool in return. Green, I think, or red. She looks well in red.
Also, if you can spare an hour on fair day, the sheep has asked for her teacher. She has not asked. She is a sheep. But I think she would like it.
Yours,
Fen
%%
Letter: Hob to Nim, the honey
Dear Nim,

Thank you for the cider. I poured it into the honey jars by mistake, which the bees found very funny. They are still lively, and I will not be selling the honey to anybody until they have settled.

Here are the honey counts for the contest: forty jars for the fair, and six for the judges, who have asked for a sample each and have already had three. Tell Jory the eel is welcome at my table.

My apprentice Tuck came back from the orchard yesterday, very proud, with his first order done. He carried a sack of seed to the right tree, which is more than I managed at his age. Then he asked me for another order, and I gave him one, and he did it.

Your friend, Hob
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Letter: Hesk to Wren, the wrong rope
Dear Wren,

Your letter came up with the last cart before the cold. It was a good letter, and the best news in it was about Moss. Tell Moss it has done more than most of my crew did in their first year. My own apprentice carried a whole cart of copper ore into the sump last week, because I said "bring the copper to the sump" and it heard "bring the copper down the sump." Then it went down the sump after it.

It is all right. It came up again. It was wet and cross. It had found a vein of copper on the way down, and it had brought that up too, which was nice of it. I am writing to you about it because you will understand.

Here is what happened. I gave it a rope order, the kind we give every morning. Haul the rope. That was it, one word, and then the lift. It hauled the rope. Then it hauled the rope again, and again, for an hour. It did not stop. It had hauled the rope out of the lift shaft, and the lift was still at the bottom with the foreman inside it, shouting.

When I asked it why, it wrote its answer on the card, very neatly. "Haul the rope. Haul it until it is done." I had never told it when the rope was done. I had only told it to haul. That was my mistake, and I said so to the foreman, who did not believe me.

So now I give every order with an end on it. "Haul the rope until the lift is up. Then stop." And if it cannot see the lift, it asks. We have drilled it on "until," and it is good at it now. It has learned to stop. Not every time, but more often than before.

Tell Moss the copper is still in the sump, if it wants to fetch it out. Bring the cart.

Your friend,
Hesk
Copperhold, by the lift
%%
Letter: Lyle to Hesk
Dear Hesk,

I have written to Nessa about the stream. She gave me a plain answer, so I am sending it to you before you explain it over supper.

A layered mind passes a finding from one layer to the next. When the answer is wrong, a share of the blame goes back through the layers. Each layer changes its weights a little. The stream lets a layer add what it found to the findings already carried through the mind. A deep layer can still learn without casting aside all that came before.

It is not cheese. Nessa says the cheese cloth example is only an example. I know that. I am writing it down so you do not say the mind has curds inside it.

Clank brought your dish back. It was clean, except for one corner. He said that corner was clean enough for a miner. I washed it again. The cheese was too sharp, he said, but he took a second piece before leaving.

The cow has eaten hay today. She is still slow, but she stood by the well while I filled her pail. Wren says not to hurry her. Sella says she will come with the blanket when the road is safe.

The relay lamp is still covered. The keeper sent a message through the lower tower. It said the glass must wait until the wind drops. I hope the lamp is mended before the next snow. It is a poor thing to have a broken light above a town that already has enough dark.

Lyle
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Letter: Dara to Tam
Tam,

Your bees are quiet because the spring is cold and slow, and bees do not like a cold spring any more than we do. Mine came out late too, and then the warm week came and they were busy as ever. Keep the hives out of the wind and give them a little sugar water if the flowers are thin. They will be all right. Do not carve the scarecrow a sad face, it frightens the crows but it frightens me too.

I have been thinking about the ships. I do not like it either. But folk have always gone where they liked, and some come back and some do not, and that was true before there were any big ships. I would not go over the sea. I have my hives and my apples and the oldest tree with the grey branch, and that is enough for me.

I have news of my own. The new road east is finished. It runs from the Long Road up toward Vell, and it saves half a day for the carts. I walked a little way along it on my way home. It is packed earth with a cobblestone edge and a torch every twelve blocks, and the bridge over the stream is stone. It is a good road. The clerks at Vell drew the plan, they say, and the council paid for it, and it was built in one season. I stood on the bridge and watched the water and felt glad of a thing that was simply good and simply done.

I paid off the hives last week. Eleven emeralds to Jory, counted twice, and the debt is done. I keep putting my hand in the empty purse.

At the inn I heard the lights in the north called falling stars, and fires, and lamps hung up high, all in one evening, by people who had all seen the same sky. I heard the mines hum and the stone grow warm. I heard the relays go quiet in the north and the snow on the towers blamed for it. I do not know which is true. Maybe none of them. Maybe all. I keep my bees and I pay my debts and I walk where I like, and I am only a beekeeper.

Give Pip my love. Tell her the seventh hive is hers to name, and it is doing well.

Your sister,
Dara
%%
Letter: Quin to Fenna, Una's crystal
Dear Fenna,
The children are right, and you are right too. The crystal was bad at first. That is the lesson.
Here is how Una did it, as Mags told it to me when I was young. Una had a crystal in a box, and a row of apples and pears on a table. She would take one fruit at a time and show it to the crystal. Apple, or pear. The crystal would say which it thought. Sometimes it was right. Mostly it was wrong, the first week.
When it was wrong, Una did not shout and she did not start again. She went into the crystal, very carefully, and moved each of its weights a little. Not all the way to the right answer. Only a little, toward it. Then she showed it the next fruit.
A crystal is made of weights, many of them, and the weights decide the answer. A small move is all it takes. One weight a hair heavier, one a hair lighter. Each time it is wrong, the move goes the right way, and it is a little less wrong the next time.
By the end of the summer the crystal was sorting better than the children of Ambrook. It could tell a pear from an apple by the stalk, which Una had not even told it to look at. It had found the stalk by itself, by being wrong about everything else.
That is the whole lesson. The crystal learns from what it is shown. Each wrong answer changes it a little. Be patient, and keep the changes small.
Quin
%%
Letter: Emmet to Hara
Dear Hara,

The mason came from Copperhold with a hammer, a coil of rope, and a very small lunch. He found a crack above the well mouth. He says the water has fallen low, but the crack made the bucket come up dry sooner. He will mend it when the stone is dry.

I asked the big mind if I should dig beside the well. It said not to dig without checking where the old channels run. It did not know where they run on this farm. It told me to ask someone who had seen the old plan.

I found the plan in the chest by the barn. It shows a water line under the north fence, near the birch stump. I will not dig there until the mason comes back. The mind was right to stop me, though it could not see the plan.

The horse is still in your stable. I borrowed her again to carry the mason's tools. I should have asked first. She came home with a sore patch under the strap, and I am sorry. I rubbed it with warm water and gave her an apple.

Please tell me what I owe for the ride. I will bring the horse back before she decides the farm is hers.

Emmet
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Letter: Bel to Mab, the lesson

Dear Mab,

I helped my aunt at the hives yesterday. We took only the honey from the full combs. The bees kept working on the other combs. My aunt said a hive should not be left bare, even when the jars are empty.

I wanted to carry the full jar home, but it was too heavy. So I carried the empty jars instead. Aunt said that was useful too. I did not spill one.

I liked your lesson about the oldest room in the Archive. I thought a deep room would be dark, but the light wells bring daylight down. I want to see them again when my mother visits Vell.

Could the class write letters to the people who mend the mill wheel? I think they might like to know we can hear the wheel from our window. It makes a soft sound when it turns.

Bel
%%
Letter: Nella to Oren, the farm lesson
Dear Oren,

The wheat is not ready, though the field looks gold from the road. The farm keeper says it needs more sun. The children say the birds agree, because they have come to eat it.

I read your old letter to them beside the well. I explained that a drill is a set of examples shown to a mind. If the mind is shown the same sort again and again, it may get that sort right. That does not mean it knows how to tend a row or carry a basket.

They wanted to know if the four helpers were children. I said no. They were made of copper and iron, and each had a mind in a crystal. The word apprentice came from the children who watched them work. The helpers did not speak. One moved along a row. One put things in the right bins.

A child asked why a crystal learns. I told her that the old tutors did not know. She looked at the crystal drawing on the board and said, "Then we should keep asking." I think that is a good answer.

I am sending the lesson page back. The corner is wet because the youngest child set it by the water jar. I dried it in the sun. The words are still clear.

Your box is on the high shelf. The lid sticks less now. I rubbed the hinge with a little oil.

Nella
%%
Letter: Cass to Oren, in reply
Dear Oren,

I have read your letter three times, once at the table, once at the well and once in bed. Then I sat down and did as you asked. Here is everything I can write, and what I cannot write I have said so.

Remedies, and how I make them. Honey in warm milk for a sore throat, every night. Crushed leaf in clean wool for cuts, changed each morning. Willow bark in hot water for the aches in the back, and a cold cloth for the head. I have written each one out, with the amounts, which are a little rough, because my hands measure by feel. Tell the clerks not to trust my hands too far.

Illnesses this spring. Three children with fevers in Thaw, all mended. One old man with a cough that would not go, in Sowing, who is now well enough to argue with me about his wall. Two sprained wrists from the lift at the mine gate, which is not my business but was brought to me anyway. Nothing that has not come before, as far as I know. I have written down what I remember of the years before, too, so that you have something to compare with.

The water in my well is the same as always. Cold, a little hard, sweet at the bottom. The well at the mine gate is clear. The river by the bridge runs low, but it did last year too. I have written down the measurements, with the day and the time, so that anyone who comes after can see the difference, if there is one.

Strange things I have been told. Hesk says the stone on the fifth level is warm, and the men agreed not to go lower without a reason. Hesk says he has heard a hum at night, and then he said he did not want that written. I have written it anyway, and put his name to it, as you asked. Bram says the same. Ola says it is the lamp. I have written that as well. Sennet says the ships at Saltreach are good ships, and I believe him. The carters say other things. I have written what they say, and I have marked each one as a rumor, because that is all it is.

I am sending a jar of honey, from the red ribbon hive, and a small carved bee for the top shelf of the Archive. Put the bee where the clerks can see it. It is for their tea, and their long days, and for you, who are always so polite about it.

Now the hard part. Sennet and his wife leave for Saltreach at the start of Melon, and I am sorry to lose them. I have packed my shelves for Hob to keep. I have written everything I know on paper, and the paper is in two boxes, one with me and one with Hob. If one box is lost, the other remains.

I do not know what we are writing for. You do not say, and I do not ask. But I am glad to be asked to write everything down, because it means that someone thinks it is worth keeping, and I am tired of being the only one who remembers what the well tastes like in Thaw.

Write back when you can, and tell me what the clerks say about the bee.

Cass
Healer, the farm above Copperhold
%%
Letter: the lamp keeper to the inn
To the innkeeper of the Halfway Inn, from the keeper of the relay tower on the Long Road.

Dear Ottilie,

I am sorry about the lamp. The glass on the north side cracked in the storm, and the lamp went dark on the third night of Apple.

The new pane has been ordered from Saltreach. It will come up by the next cart, if the road is kind, and a man who likes to talk will come with it, and fit it, and tell me about his cousin.

Until then, the lamp will blink crooked. Please tell the carters it is not a message. It is only the wind.

Yours in lamplight,
the keeper
%%
Letter: Dell to Piper, the orchard news
Dear Piper,
The honey is safe. Mother says she ate the spoon, so the jar is one spoon short. I have said nothing. I am being very good.
The orchard is full of wasps. They sit on the windfalls and get drunk on the cider in the cracks. Father says they are not dangerous when they are drunk. Mother says they are the most dangerous thing in the valley when they are sober, so they must be kept in the drunk state. I do not understand this, but I agree.
The old apple tree by the gate has a grey branch. It has been dead all summer, and it still has three apples on it, which is very rude of it. We will pick them and give them to the carter as a joke.
Jory came to the orchard gate yesterday. He asked for Ida. We said she was in Three Wells. He looked very sad and went away with a sack of flour, which was a wrong thing to do, because we do not sell flour. We sold him the sack anyway. He said thank you twice.
Your friend, Dell
%%
Letter: Fern to Mira
Dear Mira,

I am writing at the stall, between customers, with the eggs in their straw and the flies on the basket. This is my letter for the north market, and I am not going to make it short, because you never make yours short, and I like to answer you in kind.

First the boat. It came home in the evening, late, as all the boats do when the weather has been good and the sea has been greedy. The men put the net on the wall and the children climbed on it. Sal stood at the end of the quay with her hands on her hips and said nothing for an hour, which is how you know she is pleased. Then she said the boat would be called the Fern, and I said it would not, and she said it would be called the Fern anyway, because the net had been good, and nobody argues with the net.

Second, the wedding. You know about the wedding. Everybody knows about the wedding, because Lil made a cake the size of the table and the cook from the relay house has been complaining about it since Thaw. The bride's sister had the red ribbon in her hair, and the groom's father gave a speech that was mostly about the price of salt, and then he cried, and then he asked for the salt to be passed. It was a fine wedding. The stew was not too thin. I checked.

Third, the things I could not say at the wedding. Ansel's wife came to me at the end of the night and asked whether I had heard the north lamp go dark. I said I had. She asked whether I had seen it come back on, and I said I had. She said she had only wanted to know that somebody else had seen it, and that she would sleep better. I went home and slept very badly, and that is the truth of it.

Fourth, the summer. The good weather is holding, the boats are full, the honey is in, and the hens are laying like it is the first day of the world. You should come down for the summer fair. Bring the frog jar, and Tam, and anybody else who wants to shout at the sea. There is a great deal of noise on the wall in the afternoons, and I like to be in the middle of it.

Fifth, and last, the thing I wanted to ask you. Would you keep an egg for me in the north relay? Only one. In the box with the lamp oil, where the dry things are kept. I want to see whether it still hatches in a year, and I do not trust myself to keep it.

Your friend,
Fern
Egg seller, Northpoint
%%
Letter: Farmer to Ash
Dear Ash,

The new map came with Pell's cart, and I put it on the table beside the bread. It is clear enough that even my aunt can find the well on it. She says the well should be drawn larger. She likes wells and distrusts small pictures.

I have a small request. Please mark the path from the west bed to the boardwalk. The old path runs through the place where we dry reeds. Since the cough began, Wren has asked us to keep the door clear for her visits. We moved the reed bundles, but now everyone walks through the carrot bed.

The carrots do not like feet. Neither do I.

The cough is mild in our house. My wife has it, and I have not. She says I am lucky. I say I have been sleeping in the barn. She says that is not why. We do not agree, but she has the warm room and I have the barn, so she has won.

A man from Saltreach came by yesterday. He said the big ships were built to take families over the sea. Another traveler said they were built to bring grain back. The man from Saltreach had not sailed in one. The traveler had not seen one close. I asked them both to help carry a sack of potatoes. They found other work.

The field is green and the well rope is sound. The bees are busy at the flowers. I hope the weather holds.

Please bring the map when you come. I will show you where the boardwalk bends. I have a fresh loaf for you, if the dog does not get to it first.

Your neighbor,
Eda
%%
Letter: Pell to Oren
Dear Oren,

I am at the Brown Hen again. The innkeeper says I have worn a mark in the bench with my ledger. I told him the bench should be grateful for such steady company.

Please tell the tutors that I read the little note sent by the Vell relay. I could not tell if a clerk wrote it or the big mind. It said, "The road is wet. Keep your bundles covered." That is good advice from anyone.

They say the reading mind takes each letter in order. It looks back through the letters already read and uses the ones that matter to guess the next. It does not see the whole page at once. The window holds about sixty letters. I asked if it reads the price board that way. The keeper said yes, if the board is sent through the relay.

I am not asking you to send my ledger. It has a page of bad sums, and I am still deciding who to blame.

The Brown Hen has a new cat. It sleeps on the warm ink. I have given up writing after supper.

Pell
%%
Letter: Mira to Hesk, the scarf
Hesk,
The scarf came on the wool cart. It is brown and grey and long enough to go round the tower twice. Lantern wore it for an hour and said it felt like being hugged by a sheep. I have not taken it off since.
Thank you. It is a good scarf. The foxes agree. Sock the fox sat on it all through the afternoon and would not be moved, so I have had to wear the other end.
The snow has come early this year. The stair lamps are lit at every turn, and the wind is loud on the glass. I think of the Deep Works, which must be warm, and I am a little jealous.
Write and tell me how the lift is.
Mira
%%
Letter: Ossa to Tam
Dear Tam,
You asked in your last letter whether I had any news of apprentices. You wrote it in the way you write everything, with a joke and a crumb of mud on the page.
Yes. I have news. Here, in our hamlet near Copperhold, we have our first. It came last week from Hesk, who had it from the tutors at Vell. A copper thing with an iron back and a crystal behind the plate. It stands in the lane in front of my shop and looks at the candles. It does not move unless told. When told, it moves very carefully.
Hesk says the first week is the hardest. It is learning the town. It is learning that a candle is not a stone. It is learning that a dog is not a door. It made a mistake with the dog on the second day, and the dog has not forgiven it.
We had a bet, Fenn and I. I said it would last the autumn. He said a month. The month is over, and it is still here, carrying wax to the cart. I have won a pie. It was a good one.
The odd thing is how soon you grow used to it. On the first day I flinched at its step. On the tenth I said good morning. It did not answer, of course, and it did not need to.
How is Pip? Is the potato field wet? Is Mira well? Tell her the candles I sent for her tower have a long burn, and are made for a long night.
There will be a harvest fair here, in the next month. If you can, come. I will give you a candle and a pie, and you can see the apprentice. It has learned to stack.
Your friend, Ossa
%%
Letter: Dace to the tower keeper
Dear Keeper Brann,

The signal lamp on the tower above Three Wells broke last night in the storm. A pane fell out, and the lamp went dark at the hour of the evening report. We sent word by runner to Vell. I hope the message was clear.

I am writing so that you know it was nobody's fault. The wind was too strong. The keeper here, young Tobias, did all he should. He climbed up in the rain and tied a cloth across the gap. He was soaked to the skin. I gave him soup.

We need a new pane. Perhaps two, in case the wind returns. Can the glass cart from Saltreach come by this road? I would be glad of it.

In the meantime, please tell the north line that Three Wells is well, though dark. The bell is ringing in place of the lamp, at dusk and at dawn. It is a small thing, but it keeps the town company.

With thanks,
Dace
Mayor of Three Wells
%%
Letter: Nessa to Lise
Dear Lise,

Your letter made me smile. The children may picture numbers climbing out of a crystal. Pictures help them begin, if we tell them where the picture ends.

A mind is built in layers. Each layer receives work from the layer before it and adds something of its own. The new work joins the stream through the mind. If the numbers in one layer grow too large, later work can become hard to guide. If they shrink too far, the layer may add almost nothing.

So we bring the numbers back to an even size at each layer. This is a simple rule for keeping the work steady. It does not tell us why a crystal learns. It does not tell us what any one number means. It only helps a deep mind learn without its numbers growing wild.

I learned this from a tutor who kept a slate beside the drill box. She wrote each layer in a row and rubbed the row clean when the figures grew too large. Later tutors found a steadier way. I do not know who first gave the rule its name.

Please let the children make their own picture of the stream. Then ask them to explain what the picture cannot tell them.

I have sent two fresh copies. Keep one dry in the school box.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Dill to Wren, bees swarming
Dear Wren,

You will laugh when you read this. I did not laugh when it happened, but I have had a day to get over it.

Yesterday, in the middle of the afternoon, the bees in my second hive decided to leave. They did not ask. They came out all at once, a great brown cloud, humming like a loom, and went up over the garden wall.

I ran after them. I had a basket in one hand and my hat in the other. I do not know why I took the hat. I was thinking of my head, I suppose.

They settled on the lowest branch of the old pear tree in the lane. A heap of bees the size of a loaf of bread, hanging there, quite calm, as if nothing had happened.

This is what your Moss told me to do, when he passed by on his way to the weir, and he was right. I held the basket under the branch. I gave the branch one good shake. The bees dropped into the basket in a lump. I put a cloth over it and walked home very slowly, like a man carrying a pie.

Now they are in an empty hive, and they seem pleased with it. I have given them a little sugar water and said some nice things.

They only got two stings in me. Both on the arm, both small. You said you had a salve for that. If you have some to spare, I would be glad of it. If not, a wet cloth works.

The honey will be late this year. But we may have a new hive, and a new hive is not a bad thing to get for the price of a hat.

Thank you for sending Moss. He is a good lad, and he knows bees.

Yours,
Dill
%%
Letter: Rowan to Hesk
Hesk,

The copper pans sold before I unloaded them. All twelve. A baker from Three Wells bought six and would not say why. I think she just likes pans.

Your town smells of smoke and the road up is all gravel. I lost a wheel spoke on it. But the sorting shed let me sleep by the bins and a miner gave me tea. I have your iron nails. Two sacks, as promised.

The apprentice here is called Clank. It carried my crates up from the cart without being asked twice. That is twice more than most folk. It walks a bit like a kettle on legs. I like it.

I will come back through in Frost with salt fish from Saltreach. Do you want any?

Rowan
%%
Letter: Mara to Cass
Dear Cass,

Thank you for the boards. The roof is dry now, and the pot is back in the kitchen. I filled it with potatoes before Tam could give it a new job.

I owe you for the work. Take the small sack of carrots by my gate. They are not for your brown horse. He already has a habit of looking into my kitchen when I open the door.

I am sorry about the child. Nel ran off after the market bell and we searched the road, the mill yard, and both fields. I found her behind the hay stack, asleep with a pumpkin beside her. She had gone there to hide from her cousins. She said the pumpkin was her guard.

Her mother was worried, and so was I. Nel is safe, and the cousins have been told not to chase her. I gave her a small apple for being found. She says she found herself.

Please tell the stable folk not to frighten her with talk of wolves. She needs to know to stay near the lamps, not to fear every sound in the hedge.

Mara
%%
Letter: Ossa to the hamlet
Dear neighbors,
There has been a bet. I am not proud of it, but I am telling you, so that nobody can say they were not told.
The bet is between me and Fenn. The question is whether the new apprentice at the mine, the copper one with the squeak, will last the autumn. Fenn says no. I say yes. The stake is a pie, and the pie is Marda's apple, which is the best in the hamlet.
I have been to see the apprentice. It is not a clever thing. It can carry a candle box from the shed to the cart, ninety paces, without dropping it. It can stand at a door. It can come when called. Hesk says that is enough, and that the rest comes later.
I think I will win.
If I do not, I will make Fenn a candle with his own face on it, and he will have to burn it. That is the other stake.
Everyone is welcome to watch. I will sit on the wall and eat a plum.
Ossa, candle maker
%%
Letter: Opal to Carys, what Kester found
Dear Carys,

You asked me in your last letter to explain the note that stopped the pay. I have been meaning to answer for a month. I will do it now, by the fire, while the snow comes down.

You know what a crystal is, and you know Una's way of drilling. A crystal is shown a thing, and answers, and if it is wrong, it is moved a little toward the right answer. After many tries, it sorts apples from pears. Una's neighbors' children were beaten by it. It was a great marvel, and so the tutors kept finding new things for crystals to sort.

Now think of a crystal as a person drawing a line. That is how Kester describes it. The crystal looks at a few marks, and draws one straight line across a board, and says yes on one side and no on the other. For apples and pears this is enough. The apples fall on one side and the pears on the other. When the crystal is wrong, the line is moved a little.

Kester asked a different question. He asked: is there anything that no straight line can divide?

Here is what he found. Two lamps, left and right. You want the crystal to say yes if exactly one lamp is lit, and no if both are lit or neither. Put the four cases on a board as four dots at the corners of a square. The two yes dots are opposite corners. The two no dots are the other corners. No straight line has the yes dots on one side and the no dots on the other. A string cannot do it, and neither can a ruler, and neither can a crystal. Kester drew it on forty boards. He proved it to the tutors.

Then the council did what councils do. They heard that a crystal could not learn one or the other, but not both, and they asked: if it cannot learn that, what can it learn? And they stopped the pay.

That is all of it, Carys. It is a very small thing. A crystal can learn a great deal, but not that. Kester says nobody has yet found a way for a crystal to learn that, and he does not say nobody ever will.

He paid me back the twelve emeralds I lent him for coal. He counted them twice, and tied the packet with red wool. I did not need them. I put them in the jar for the next hard winter. I told him that.

The snow is up to the sill. The cat is in the bread bin. There are three babies due before Thaw, and I am counting them.

Your Opal
%%
Letter: Hob to Nessa
Dear Nessa,

First, the news. Our mare Clover had her foal in the night, a filly, black with a white sock. I sat up in the stable with a lamp and a blanket. She came out slowly and stood in the straw at once, as if she had somewhere to be. I have named her Sparrow. She is already on my nerves.

Second, the question. The relay house at the foot of the tower is nearly done. They tell me it will hold a big mind, in a crystal the size of a loaf. They say it will stand on a stand in the middle, and that around it there will be rows of quickeners. I do not know what a quickener is. I asked a stonemason and he said, "It makes the mind quick." I said, "Quick at what?" He said, "At being a mind."

I am a horse keeper. I understand horses. A horse is quick by being fed. What do you feed a quickener?

Please explain, in plain words, as if I were Sparrow.

Hob
%%
Chronicle: the towers spread
Kept at the Archive at Vell, in the hall of the roads.

In the first years the towers were few. The first tower stood at Vell, and a keeper lived in a house at its foot and lit the lamp at night. Word went from tower to tower by lamp and by letter. A message that took a month by cart took a week by tower, and then less.

By the winter of the twelfth year there were nine towers. By the twentieth year there were eighteen. The crews went out with carts of stone and glass and copper, and the councils paid for the roads that joined them. A tower is the tallest thing for half a day's walk. It has a stair or a ladder of rungs inside, a stair lamp at every turn, torches round the foot, and at the top the signal lamp in its room of glass panes with a copper ring. The keeper walks round the ring at night and keeps the line down to the desk.

The masons say the stone must be true and the glass must be clean. The keepers say the lamp must never go out. The clerks say the letters must be kept. All three are right.

At the foot of every tower stands a relay house for the keeper, and from these houses word runs along the roads. Folk walk to the tower to send a message and pay a copper or a few. A farmer sends word to a market. A healer sends for herbs. A child sends a letter to the Archive and the clerk files it and gives it a number, and the child is proud.

The market at Kettle Ridge asked for a tower and gave the stone from its quarry. The town of Three Wells gave bread and soup to the masons. The orchard village of Ambrook gave apples and honey. The port at Saltreach gave glass from its furnaces. The mining town of Copperhold gave copper for the rings. A tower is built by many hands.

There was a festival on the ridge when the first tower in that country was lit. There was a bonfire and a song. The keeper climbed the stair with a jar of honey in her coat, for her throat, and lit the lamp, and the whole ridge saw it. The children said the lamp was a star come down to help.

Not everyone is glad of the towers. Some say the roads bring strangers and the towers bring news too fast. The councils answer that a road is a kindness and a tower is a neighbor. The archive keeps both letters and lets them stand.

We will keep everything we write.
%%
Letter: Dace to Hanna
Dear Hanna,

You asked me to find out about the tutor who will come to your farm outside Copperhold in the first week of Sowing. I have written to Vell, and I have the answer.

Her name is Marit. She is forty, careful and very exact. She comes to look at your apprentice, the one that sorts the beets. She will test it on a sorting it has not seen. Do not tell it beforehand what she will bring. She will bring her own beets.

She sleeps lightly and likes tea. She does not eat fish, or at least she says so in her letter. I have told her about your dogs.

I hope this helps. Give my greetings to Rolf.

Dace
%%
Letter: Dace to the tutor at Vell
Dear Tutor Kerr,

Your letter about the new apprentice for the hamlet farms came this week.

I have read it twice. I have a question.

You write that the apprentice is ready, that it has been drilled on the east field drill for a month, and that you are confident. I believe you. But I also believe the old rule, which is that a mind must be tested on what it was never drilled on.

You wrote that it has been tested. On what? Please tell me what the test was. Was it a field the apprentice had never seen? Was it a task it had never done? If it was, I will sign the paper at once. If it was the same field it learned on, I will ask for another test.

I do not ask this out of distrust. I ask it because I am a mayor, and mayors are responsible for what they send into the fields. A mind that has been drilled on a thing can seem to know it. A mind that has been tested on a thing it never saw has shown that it knows.

You told me this yourself, years ago, over a glass of cider, when you came to speak at the school. I wrote it on the back of my hand and kept it for a week.

Send me the test and I will sign.

With respect,
Dace, mayor of Three Wells

P.S. The hamlet has had a creeper. One wall of the barn is gone. If the apprentice is as strong as you say, it might help rebuild.
%%
Letter: Ossa to her brother, the bet
Dear Jory,
You owe me an emerald. I know you will say no. You are wrong.
You bet me that my first candle of the autumn would sink in the wax. It did not. It floated, and it burned, and it lit the whole shop. I have written down the day. It was the fourth of Apple. Witnesses: Hett, the dog.
Pay up, and I will send you a candle.
Ossa
%%
Letter: Wren to Nessa, a quick one
Nessa,

Thank you for the drill boards. Moss has already learned the field of four. It stands in the middle of the reeds and will not move until it is told. The frogs have decided it is a post and sit on its head.

The jars are fine. Two broke on the cart. The rest are on the high shelf with the labels facing out, the way you like them.

Write when you can. Lowmarsh is very wet this summer.

Wren
%%
Letter: Gault to Mira, the north fence
Mira,

You know the fence on the north road. The one that runs from the foot of the relay tower to the old oak. It is the fence that has been there since before the tower was built, and the fence that Harrow says is his, and that I say is mine, and that has been leaning toward Harrow's side since Reaping.

I measured it. I used a rope, as Harrow did, and my rope agrees with me. I was rude about the rope to his face. I apologise for that, and not for the rope.

Please would you ask your Lantern to come down the road with its level and say what it thinks. Harrow will not accept my word, and I will not accept his, but the apprentice has no stake in the fence, and so its word would be fair.

Gault
Ambrook hill
%%
Letter: Hesk to Ivo, the shaft head
Ivo,

Send the cider up with the carts on the next run. Twelve barrels, the sharp ones, not the sweet. The men want something to wash the coal out of their mouths. The sweet makes them sing, and the foreman does not allow singing on the shaft stair.

The shaft head is ready for the spring work. We have new props in the stope, and the rails are clear to the second level. The count board is clean. Some fool wrote SNOW on it in chalk, and the cook wants him made to sweep the kitchen. That was Dorrit's doing, I think, and I have not said so to her.

The copper on the second level is good this spring, and the iron is better than last year. The coal near the sorting shed is poor, so I have had the boys break it small and sell it to the forge at a loss. The forge wants it that way, and the forge is never grateful.

Send two new ropes with the carts too. The old ones are fine for a man, but they do not like a basket of ore, and neither do I.

The tutors sent us an apprentice from Vell in the last thaw. It is called Clank, which I did not choose. It carries ore from the shaft head to the sorting shed, two baskets at a time, up the stair and down again. It knows every step. It does not stop for the bell. The men say that is because it cannot hear it. I think it can hear it, and it does not care.

I will say this once, so you can tell the others in the barn. Clank has been right every time I have checked its count. Forty baskets, forty right. It does not talk. It stands where it is put, and it waits for the next basket the way a man waits for his dinner. I did not expect to like it. I do.

Keep your barrels sealed. The spiders are welcome in the barn, if they keep the wasps out of the bung holes.

Hesk

P.S. Tell Dorrit the snow was her fault. She knows.
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam
Tam,

The first snow came early this year. It came in the night and did not stop. When I opened the tower door this morning the drift was up to my waist. Lantern had to dig a path to the relay house. He dug it well. He is proud of the path. Do not tell him I said so.

I have been thinking about the lights. I know I said I would not write of them again. I lied. They came back three nights past. They were green and low, and they did not blink like stars. Lantern watched them a long time. Then he said they were looking at us. I told him they were falling stars and he should go to bed. I said it in a sharp voice. He went.

I do not think they were falling stars. I do not think they were fires. I do not know what they were. They were not ours. That is all I will say.

Enough of that. How is the beetroot? Is the long field done? Is Pip keeping the ditch clear? You never write about the ditch. I care about the ditch.

The foxes are bolder than usual. One came right up to the tower foot and sat by the torches. It looked at me like I owed it something. I gave it a bit of fish and it ate it and went. Now it comes every night. I suppose I have a fox now.

My hands are cold. That is not news. That is just my hands.

Write soon. Tell me about the ditch.

Mira

P.S. Do not let Pip sleep late. You slept late when you were his age and the hens got into the barn.
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira
Dear Mira,

The spring market is over, and Pip has not lost the key to the grain shed. This is good news. He has lost my red glove, but I have found it in the flour bin, so I count that as an improvement.

I went to the market hall to hear the Vell tutors. They had a reading mind on a stand, with a crystal in a wooden case. They showed it old records from the Archive. One tutor covered the next line and asked what words might follow. The mind made a guess. Then they showed the line, and the tutor marked whether the guess was right.

They said the mind learns from many pages. It does not keep one lesson for each page. It changes its weights a little as it sees examples, so later guesses may improve. The tutor said this takes a long time and needs clean copies. A torn page or a copy of the same page again and again can make poor teaching.

I asked whether they had used my letter about the broken windmill. They laughed, but would not tell me. I hope they did not use the part where I blamed the wind. The wind was innocent.

I am sending you a small sack of beetroot seed. Keep it dry at Northpoint.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the sea
Dear Mira,

I am at the sea. I have a great deal to tell you and not much paper.

It is bigger than I thought. It does not stop. You stand on the stones and it comes at you, and goes away, and comes at you again, as if it forgot something.

The hamlet is called Sandhook. Nine houses, a rack for drying fish and a path down to the boats. I am staying with Fen and Nell, who fish. Nell put three kinds of fish in front of me before I sat down. My bed is in the net loft. It smells of fish. So do I.

I came for kelp. The ridge says it makes potatoes grow big, and I want big potatoes. The cart is half full already. Sorrel the mare does not like the smell.

I took off my boots to wade. A wave took one sock. Now I know how you feel about Sock the fox.

Pip has the fields. Hal next door will look in on it.

Write soon. Say hello to Lantern.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Garrow to Ree, the cheese prize
Dear Ree,

I have been asked by the market board to write to you about the cheese prize, which I am told you have not yet forgiven. I have not forgiven you either, and the board is not interested in either of our opinions.

The judges sat in the afternoon, when the cheese had been in the sun since the morning. That is the sun's fault, and the judges' for sitting in it. Your blue cheese was the best in the square, and I will say so in public, as long as you do not ask me to say it in front of your sister.

My cheese came second, which is the honest place for a cheese cut too early. I had the knife in my hand for an hour before the judging. The knife was sharp. I was not. I am sorry for that.

But the judges disagreed about yours. The first said it was too sharp. The second said it was too soft. The third said it was perfect, and then asked whether there was any more of it, and took the last piece home in his hat. A cheese that is perfect for one man is a judging problem for the other two.

I propose that next summer each cheese is cut in four, and each judge takes one quarter, and nobody takes any home in a hat. The board has agreed, provided we pay for the knives.

Also, the dog. The mayor's dog has been seen at my cold room door three times this week, wearing your ribbon, looking at the door. I believe he has earned the cheese. I am not giving him any. You can deal with the dog yourself.

Come to the cold room on the next market day, and bring the good salt. We will settle the matter over the last of my cheese, which the dog has not found.

Yours, in cheesemaker's rivalry,
Garrow

P.S. Your cheese was the best. I have said it. I will not say it again, and if you repeat it, I will deny it on the market board.
%%
Letter: Ivo to Tam, the drill boards
Tam,

The hall at Vell is shut. The council wrote at the end of Leaffall to say the tutors are no longer needed. They were kind about it. They gave us a week's pay and a handshake.

I packed what I could carry. Six drill boards, and the field board with its small brown field drawn on it in chalk. The tray of crystals, each one on its card: Farm. Build. Haul. Come. You know the tray. Hollis took the cards and I took the tray. We both think we won.

Keep the boards dry. Do not let Crumb use them for kindling. I doubt it would know it was being rude.

I have sold my house on Vell Stair to a baker with three children. The children were climbing my drill yard fence when I left. That is the first sign of a good tenant I have ever seen.

I will sleep in your barn until Thaw. Then I will build a hut behind the mill, if the mill allows it. It squeaks. I heard it from the road, and it squeaked at me.

I know a tutor should not fuss over a council. I am fond of the boards anyway. Every child in that hall learned the field drill on them, the bad ones and the good ones. The good ones were not always the ones you would guess.

Keep some bread for me. I will bring the cheese.

Ivo, once a tutor, now a barn guest
%%
Letter: Piper to Dell, the long autumn
Dear Dell,
I have been at the Halfway for a month, and there is nothing to tell, which is how I know I am happy.
The fleece is carded. The carder's bench is clean. The lint is in the bread. The second bowl has gone to a boy and a dog and a trader who said he would never come back, and then came back for the third time, and I did not charge him for the bowl or the lesson.
The hearth is low and red. Travelers sit round it all evening and talk about everything, the price of barley, a bridge in the north, a lamp that blinked in a strange way over Lowmarsh one night. Nobody knows what it meant. Everyone has an idea. I keep quiet about my idea, because I do not have one.
At night I walk out to the gate and look up the Long Road. It is very dark. Then I come back and sit by the hearth with my hands in my lap, and the wool smells of the sheep, and the stew is still warm.
Come and visit me before the frost. Bring the honey. Bring yourself, and do not bring any singing.
With love, from the bench,
Piper
%%
Letter: Dace to Mira, thank you
Dear Mira,

Your warning about the river came down the line in the middle of the night, and I want to thank you for it. It said: river rising, move the stalls. We moved the stalls. Three hours later the river was in the square. Nobody lost a pumpkin.

I have read so many messages from you over the years that I feel I know your handwriting, which is odd, since I have never seen it. I know your lamp, which is better. At the end of a long day I look up at the hill and think: somewhere north of there, someone is up a ladder in the snow so that I can have a warning. I wish more mayors thought of that.

The autumn fair is in Apple. I wish you would come. I know you cannot leave the lamp. But if you could come for one day, I would put you at the head of the table, and I would let you say anything you liked about the beetroot contest. You may say that Tam's beetroot is smaller than his head. I will not read it out.

All of Three Wells sends its thanks. So does the third well, which is the wishing well, and has been given a good many wishes for you.

Your friend,
Dace
%%
Letter: Wren to Mira, the lost letter
Mira,

I am sorry about the letter. It did not come. The cart from Ambrook says it was not on the north road at all, but in the bottom of Pell's cart with the honey. Pell says he has a new roof on his cart, and it leaks onto his ledgers. So your letter is somewhere under the honey now, with the bees.

I will say again what I wrote before. My jars are on the high shelf, the willow bark is dry, and the frogs have stopped eating the herbs. Moss says the herbs are safe. I asked Moss how it knew. It stood very still and looked at the shelf. Then it went and fetched the bark, and that was its answer.

You asked if I was lonely at Lowmarsh. I am not lonely. I am only tired, which is different. The water comes up under the boardwalk every night now, and the boats need bailing before the first light. Half of the village is on the planks with a bucket.

Keep the scarf warm. Do not let the fox near it. I know what they are like with wool.

Wren
%%
Letter: Greer to Joss, about the hens
Dear Joss,

The hens have gone into the hay loft again, all eleven of them. I found nine eggs up there by sitting on them. Do not laugh. You would have sat on them too.

A new apprentice came up the ridge this morning on the cart. It fetched the water, then the wrong water, then the right water. The children say it is slow. The children are wrong.

Yours, with straw in my hair,
Greer
%%
Letter: Nessa to Oren, on being wrong
Dear Oren,

You say that the test box is a memory. That is wrong, though you wrote it very well, and I laughed at the tea.

A memory is what a mind keeps of the drill. It is what the mind can say back to us. The test box is not that. The test box holds the questions the mind has never met, and so it is the only place we learn whether the mind has learned anything at all.

The clerks say this in the hall every year. They do not always understand it. I have stopped trying to explain it with long words, because the apprentices understand it better than the clerks do. They do not care what a page is about. They only care whether it is right.

Here is how I explain it to the new tutors, and you may copy it out for the clerks, slowly, so they do not spill tea on it.

First, drill the mind until it is right on the pages it knows. This takes a long time. Each time it is wrong, it changes a little. Each time it is right, it changes less. That is how it gets better.

Second, show it a page it does not know. Not a page that is a little different. A page that asks the same idea in another way. If the mind is right there too, it has learned the idea. If it is wrong there, it has only learned the pages.

Third, do not let the two kinds of page mix. The drill pages go in the drill. The test pages go in the box. If a test page is shown in the drill, it is no longer a test, and we have lost one of our few honest pages.

Fourth, write down the day you use a test page. Then never use it twice. A mind that has seen a page once knows it, and a known page tells us nothing.

The contests between the halls work the same way. Two tutors each drill a mind, and both minds are tested on the same unseen pages from the box. The better mind wins, and the tutor who drilled it gets the blame for the losers. It has made the tutors honest. It has made them careful with their pages, too, since everyone wants to win.

Keep the box locked. Keep the key with the tutor. Keep the spoiled pages out of the drill. And when you are finished being proud of a good drill, go and check the test box. It is always the test box that tells you the truth.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Dell to Hesk
Hesk,

My furnace has been running cold since the spring. You know why. The sand is poor. It came up from the shore in a cart with the bottom half wet, and the glass it makes is grey and thick, like the water in a rain barrel. I have blown three panes this week and every one has clouded.

I have asked the Saltreach carter for better sand. He says the sand is the same as always. He says the sea is not what it was. He says the fishers are catching less, and the sand is less clean, and the shore is full of a black crust that nobody will explain.

I do not know what to believe. I only know my glass is not right, and the lamps on the north road cannot go on with grey glass. Mira wrote to say the lamp room at Northpoint has a crack, and she has nothing to mend it with but tape.

Please send me the best sand you have, from the far bay, where the rocks are. If there is none, send me the old bags from the store. I will sift them myself.

And tell Mira I am sorry about the crack. Tell her I will blow her a pane with no bubbles at all, if I have to stay up all summer to do it.

Dell
Glassworks, the house at the edge of Copperhold
%%
Letter: Nessa to Hobb, from the road
To Hobb, at the Halfway Inn, from Nessa, tutor of apprentices at Vell, who is on her way back from Three Wells with a box of drills and a sore back.

Dear Hobb,

Thank you for the room. It was the quietest I have had in two years, which is a compliment, I think, since your kitchen is very loud at night. I did not mind the draught under the door. I minded only the cat, which sat on my box of drills for an hour and would not move. I was impressed by its judgment. It knew exactly which pages were the useful ones.

Thank you for the honey, too. It came with the second bowl, which I did not order, and which was very good. You said it was from Ambrook. I have had Ambrook honey before, and this was darker, and it tasted of the apple blossom on the hill. I have asked the mill house about it. They say the bees are very proud this year.

The drills are going well. The new mind at the hall learns the reading drill faster than any I have taught. It is shown a page, and it guesses the next word, and most of the time it is wrong. Then, after a long run of drills, it is right almost every time. The test box says it has learned, not only remembered. I am pleased, and a little frightened, and I have not decided which is larger.

When I come through next spring, I would like the room by the stove, if it is free. I will bring the drills, and I will leave the cat in the stables, where it belongs. Keep the riddle board in good order. I will try it again, and this time I will not shout the answer.

With thanks, and with my back much improved,
Nessa
%%
Letter: Innkeeper Sella to Hob
Dear Hob,

Thank you for trimming the lamps on the road. The one beside my gate was smoking, and now it burns clean.

Your cap is dry. I put it on the bench by the door, away from the stew pot. A fox came close to the yard while you slept. It sniffed the cap and went away. I think it knew the cap was yours.

The latch on the wood store is still loose. I have put a peg beside it. Please do not use the little hammer with the bent handle. It is my good hammer, and it is not bent. That is what you said last time.

Pell left three sacks of carrots here for the next cart. I have put them in the cool room. He also left a jar of honey for you. He says it is from Ambrook and that you should not give it all to me.

I will set out bread for your road.

Sella
Halfway Inn
%%
Letter: Tam to Corin
Dear Corin,

Your apples were from Ambrook, not Kettle Ridge. I sent you two sacks of beetroot, and Pell says you gave one sack to the cook. He also says you asked for more.

I have heard that the tutors put words in places inside a crystal. Pip says the word for wheat sits beside the word for bread. I asked him how he knew. He pointed at the drill card, then carried it away before I could read it.

We are gathering the last beetroot now. The windmill squeaks even when there is no wind. I have put a stone by its door as a reminder to oil the wheel.

Your brother in grain,
Tam
%%
Letter: Isla to Pell
Dear Pell,

Your cart is still stuck by the west turn, and the wheel is still sitting in the mud. I know the mud is deep. I also know you have been saying, "It will come free after lunch," since yesterday.

I sent Tam and two neighbors with oak boards. They put the boards under the wheels. Then the cart sank farther and held the boards tight. We all pushed. The horse watched us with the calm look of a teacher waiting for a wrong answer.

Please unload the sacks of carrots before trying again. They are making the cart heavier, and the carrots will not help push. I have a pot ready for the cracked ones. If you leave them in the mud, I shall take them as payment for the soup.

The wind has turned cold. We tied a blanket over the honey jars, and none broke. One jar did roll into your boot. I have set it by the inn door. Do not put your foot in it.

Come to the hamlet kitchen when the cart is free. There is hot soup and a dry place by the stove.

Isla
%%
Letter: Ree to Sella
Dear Sella,

The house at the edge of Northpoint has stopped leaking. I put a flat stone over the loose roof board, and the rain now falls beside the bed instead of on it.

I borrowed your horse to bring the stone up from the store. She carried it well. She also ate the green scarf from my pack. I am sorry. I can mend the scarf, but I cannot mend the horse's opinion of it.

Please tell your boy I will bring the scarf back in spring. I will bring two apples too, if the cart has any.

Ree
%%
Letter: Pell to his sister at Ambrook
Dear Ness,
A long letter, because the road is long and the evenings are slow.
I have come back through Three Wells. The market was thin. Half the stalls were empty, and the stallholders said they were gone to Saltreach, to see the ships. Not to buy. To look. Corin at the shipyard is building them bigger than any boat we have seen. Three times as long, they say. Families are talking of going over the sea.
I do not know what is across the sea. Nobody does. A woman at the Brown Hen says it is more land. A man says it is more sea. A boy says it is where the lights come from, and was told to hush.
I cannot say what I think. I think it is a long way to go for a rumor.
At the Halfway Inn, Hobb's hearth is still lit. It has not gone out in twenty years. I sat by it last night and thought of home, and Mother's kitchen, and the smell of the apples. I have decided to come in the autumn and stay a while.
The spiders in the barn at the Hen are enormous. They have made a web from the rafter to the door. Marda says it is a good sign. I said, of what? She said she did not know.
If my last letter was lost, I will write it again. It was about the price of honey. It was not very interesting.
Give my love to Mother. Tell her I am eating.
Your brother, Pell
%%
Letter: Tobin to Ruby, the fox
Dear Ruby,
The fox came back. You will not believe where it went. It went into the hen house, past the broom, past the sleeping cat, and out again with the speckled hen under its arm. The cat did not even wake. I have said before that the cat is useless. Now I have said it in writing.
I chased the fox round the boardwalk three times. It did not hurry. It stopped at the end of each post to look at me, the way a clerk looks at a late note. Then it jumped the water and was gone into the reeds.
The speckled hen is fine. She is in the box by the stove, cross, and laying again. I think the fox frightened her into an egg.
Bring the good broom when you come on Sowing day. And bring a sack of dried fish, for the fox. If we are kind to it, maybe it will leave the hens alone and only take the cat.
Tobin
%%
Letter: Greer to Sanna
Dear Sanna,

The autumn fair is in six days. I have made forty rounds of cheese and I want to bring all of them to Copperhold. My cart is small and my old grey horse is slower than he thinks.

Will you lend me your cart? I will bring it back with a full wheel of cheese in it, and I will not count the wheel as payment. The cheese is a gift. The cart is a loan. These are different things, and I am told I mix them up.

The fair is in the square by the shaft head. There will be a pie stall and a fiddler and the miners will come up for the day. Hesk says the whole mine stops for the fair. He says even the apprentices stop, and they do not know what a fair is until someone tells them.

Bring your children. There will be honey cake. I am told there will be honey cake. If there is not, I will be very upset.

Greer
%%
Letter: Pell to Ambrook, the long winter
Dear Mother and Father,
I write from the Halfway Inn, where the snow has been on the roof for nine days and the fire has not gone out once. Hobb has kept it going with the spare wood from the barn and a great deal of swearing. I am told the swearing is the reason the fire is still alive.
The mill wheel is mended. It turns, though it squeaks on every turn, as if it has a complaint and is not yet ready to say it. The new spokes are a little lighter than the old ones, so the wheel runs faster in the race, and the miller says the flour is finer. I have tasted it. It is finer. It is also greyer, and Hobb says that is the cold in the grain.
I want to tell you about the winter road, because I do not think you will believe it otherwise.
The carts have stopped coming up from the south. The last one came in Frost, with a load of salt and no driver, only a horse that knew the way. It walked into the yard of the inn and stood by the trough and waited for its feed, as if it had not noticed anything strange. The horse is still here. It is named Mud. It eats very well and it will not go back out.
A family came up from the coast in the second week of the snow. Four children, two grown women and an old man on a sledge. They had walked the Long Road from Saltreach in the cold, and they had three carts of goods between them, and they had not been paid for the carts. They stayed in the stable. Marda gave them the big room upstairs and cooked them soup every night for a week.
I asked the eldest woman why they were leaving the coast. She looked at me for a long time. Then she said, "The fishing was poor this year. The boats were sold, so we came inland to find work." I did not ask her more. I think she was tired of saying it.
The children play in the snow every morning and then come in and sit by the fire in a row. They have stopped asking when they can go home. I think they like the fire and the noise of the inn, and that is a good sign, and I am glad to give them more soup.
Hobb says the road will open in Thaw. Marda says it will open in Sowing. The horse says nothing, and I am inclined to believe the horse.
I am keeping a ledger of everything we give away. It is the only honest book I have kept this year. When the snow is gone I will bring it home and you can read it, and you will see how much soup a family of six can eat in a week.
Your son,
Pell
%%
Letter: Hob to Mave
Dear Mave,
Thank you for the barley. It came in good order, dry and sweet. Marda cooked a pot with it that very night, and every traveler on the road had two bowls, and one of them asked for a third, and was given the leftover pot.
The mice have been at the bread bin. I know you do not believe in mice, because you say they are sensible creatures that would never eat a whole loaf. I found a loaf with half gone and a small grey tail in the flour. The tail was not sensible.
The cat is not allowed in the store. It is allowed on the bench by the hearth, which is much warmer, and where it can keep an eye on the bread.
Please send the honey as soon as it is ready. We are down to three jars and a little cloud of ants.
Hob, keeper of the Halfway
%%
Letter: Lantern to Mira, the lamp
Mira,

The glass in the lamp room is clean. I did it at dawn, before the wind came up. The copper ring is green again from the top down, the way it always goes, and I rubbed it with the old cloth and a little vinegar. It shines now, for a day.

I have a question I did not dare ask at supper. When the big mind speaks through the relay, the words come out in a line on the desk and I read them. Last night I read a line I did not understand. It asked whether we had seen the lamps to the north. It said they had been dark three nights. I looked out of the window. The lamps at the next tower are not dark. I looked again, and they are not dark.

I did not write back. I put the question in the book and went to bed.

Tell me what I should do. I will do it. I only do not like to be told one thing by the mind and another by the window.

Lantern
Northpoint, the lamp room, the desk on the stair
%%
Letter: the carter to his wife
To Marra, at the house at the foot of the ridge, from Dunn, on the Long Road, in the cold.

Dear Marra,

We came through the Halfway Inn three days ago, and I wanted to write before the next cart goes, so you will know I am alive.

The lamp on the tower above the inn has been out, and the whole road has been talking about it. The innkeeper has put candles in every window and sold most of them at a good price. The keeper of the tower wrote her a letter of apology, in his best hand. I think it was the best letter I have ever seen a keeper write.

On the second night the fog came down so thick that the mule walked into the ditch twice. Then a small boy from the inn came out with a lantern and walked beside us to the bridge, and did not say a word the whole way. He only held the lantern up high, so we could see the planks. I gave him a bit of bread. He ate it in one bite and went back.

I am thinking of the house, and the stove, and your mother's soup.
Keep the lamp lit at home. I know you will.

Your husband,
Dunn
%%
Minutes: the Three Wells spring council
Minutes of the spring council, held at the mayor's house. Dace in the chair. Nine present.

1. The wedding. Rilla and Tom are to be married at the east well on the third of Sowing. Benches from the school. Cake from the bakery, honey from Ambrook. Oren of Vell will come and bring a book for the table. Bel carries the ring. The cat is not invited. Bel asked twice. The council says no to the cat.

2. The north road. Two waymarks are down past the crossroads. Stones to be cut and set before Sowing. Pell will haul them.

3. The relay. The lamp at the tower above the mill pond blinked wrong twice this month. Lantern at Northpoint says it is the cold and not the tower. We will watch it.

4. The school. The teacher asks for a primer on how the big minds read now, in pieces of words and not letters. The council will write to Vell. Nessa has promised a short one.

5. The cat. The council returns to the cat. It sat on the notice board and knocked down the notice about the well. Dace will speak to Bel. The council notes that the cat will not stay out.

6. The well. The east well is low. Everyone is to draw from the middle well until Sowing.

Meeting closed. The next is the first of Swarm.
%%
Letter: Dell to Oren, a lost letter
Dear Oren,

I know I am late. I know you are busy with the move, and I know you hate letters that come in the wrong place. But something is wrong, and you are the only clerk who would know what to do.

I sent you a letter in the last week of Reaping. It was a long one. It had the drill notes from the farm school, the full set, twelve pages, with the answers for the apprentices written in green ink so they would stand out.

You have not had it. I asked at the post at Three Wells. The post clerk said they gave it to the cart for Vell. The cart driver said he gave it to the house at the top of the hill. The house at the top of the hill says there is no house there, only the new copying hall and a lot of boxes.

So it is in a box, or in the road, or in a bag at the bottom of the cart. I do not know which, and I am sorry.

Please look. If it is in a box, you will know which one. The boxes are labeled. Your handwriting is very bad, so I have no idea how the labels will read to anybody else, but you will read them.

If it is in the road, I am sorry for the road.

Dell
%%
Letter: Wren to Tam
Dear Tam,

I owe you a letter, and a cloth, and a bowl of Lowmarsh eel, which you once said was too good to be true. Here are the letter and the eel. The cloth is in the box.

The summer has been long and wet. The water came up under the boardwalk in the middle of the month and stayed there. The children were allowed to play in the shallow end, under a rope, with a grown person on the post. The boats were tied up for four days. Idris rowed the ferry to the far side and back, nine times, with a sack of flour on his knees, and only dropped it once, in the reeds, where the frogs took the first bite.

I want to tell you about the apprentices, because Hela has talked me half to death about them, and I cannot stop thinking about them.

Hela says the best of the new minds can take a whole sentence now. She says it is the next thing, and that it is like learning to read a word after a lifetime of letters. She has been at Vell since the spring and she has seen the clerks' sheets, and she says the Vell tutors are very proud. She says they will not say who was first. Each hall says it was theirs, and the scrolls disagree, and they are all very cross about it.

I do not care who was first. I care about Moss. Moss does not understand whole sentences. Moss understands the first word, and then a second word if I am patient. It has learned the field of four, and the sort of jars, and the weir. It does them well. It stands still in the water for hours and it has never once been wrong about the weir. But it has no idea what I mean when I say, "Take the good eel home, and be careful with the lid, and tell Pell the price is up." It takes the eel. It drops the lid. And it does not tell Pell anything, because it does not know what to say.

Hela says that is what the big minds are for. The small ones are only the hands. The ones at the relay houses can write back.

I asked her whether a small mind could ever learn to say it did not know. She looked at me for a long time. Then she said, "Wren, you are asking me to teach a fish to whistle."

So I will keep Moss. It is a good hand. And when it does not know, I will say so for it.

Give my love to Mira and tell her the fox can have the scarf back, if it can bring me the spare wool.

Your sister, in the reeds,
Wren
%%
Letter: Gwen to Mira
Dear Mira,

Spring has reached Kettle Ridge. The top field is green, and the windmill squeaks on every turn. I am staying at the house at the edge of town while Tam mends its fence. He says he will finish after supper. He has said this three times.

A fox came for the hens before dawn. It slipped through the gap by the oak post and took one. Tam blames the post. I blame Tam. We have put the other hens in the shed until the fence is sound.

The talk at the inn is all about the largest relay houses. One traveler said the great house at Vell holds more writing than the Archive. Oren would laugh at that, but the house is said to be larger than the town. Its mind has a crystal far bigger than any tutor's bench can hold. Quickeners stand around it, kept cool with water and ice.

No one here knows how the mind works inside. Nessa says a large mind is still built from layers. Each layer adds what it found to the stream through the mind. The words sit as places, and words used alike sit close together. The mind reads a page a piece at a time and guesses what comes next. A bigger crystal can hold more weights, and more writing can give those weights more examples. That is what the tutors can say plainly.

What it can do is less plain. One keeper told Tam that it had read a whole town's records and found every missing name. Another said it answered a question before the letter was sent. Tam believes both. I believe the keeper may have mixed one tale with another. The council's own test pages are kept apart, so a mind does not see them while it learns. Even then, a mind that large can give more answers than one tutor can check.

We have no such mind at the ridge. Pip's small crystal can bring bread, fetch a tool, and stay by the gate. We test it with a basket it has never seen. It still mistakes potatoes for beetroot when the light is low. Tam says this is because the shed is dim. I say the lamp needs oil.

The fence is nearly mended. Tam has set the post straight this time. He says the old post leaned because the wind wanted it so. I have written this down in case the Archive needs proof.

Your friend,
Gwen
%%
Letter: Pell to Hazel, from the road
Hazel,

I am at the Halfway Inn, by the hearth that has not gone out in twenty years. The innkeeper says so, and I believe him. My feet are warm for the first time since spring.

The cart lost a wheel on the hill above the stream. Not a big wheel. A small wheel that does big work. A carter called Osk helped me lift the cart. He sang the whole time, very badly. We had the wheel back on by dark. Osk's horse pulled us up the last bit, and the horse did not like me.

On the way out I crossed the bridge at Ambrook, the one with the loose plank. Clack. Jory was on the bank with his bucket. He said the mill wheel had turned from dawn to dusk all week. I said nobody ever complains about a mill wheel.

Now the riddle. The board here is new. It says: What has teeth, but cannot bite? Everyone who passes says comb. The innkeeper says card. We have argued since supper. The fire is low, and the argument is not. I say comb. You will say card. Tell me before the next cart.

There is stranger news. A carter from the north road says the lamp on the hill by the Brown Hen talked all night. Another says it was a bird. A third says the wind on that hill has learned to blink. I think the third carter had too much cider. I think the lamp was only tired.

Tell Sorrel the lamp is not hers to climb. Tell her I know she wants to. Tell her to count the stairs at the inn instead.

The big cards are in the back of the cart, under the sacks of wheat. Under the wheat, Hazel, not on top. I did not forget the stool. It is strapped to the roof, and it is very annoyed with the road.

Love,
Pell
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel, why a mill creaks
Dear Bel,

Your letter came on the cart from Three Wells, with a smell of straw. The clerks all asked what it was. I said it was the ridge. It was.

You ask why a windmill creaks. I have never seen one closer than from the hill above Vell, on a clear day. So I did what a clerk does. I asked three people and read two books. Here is what I found.

A windmill is a tall house with four great arms on the front, called sails. The wind pushes the sails round. The sails turn a big wooden shaft. The shaft turns a round flat stone inside the house, and that stone turns on another stone beneath it. You pour the wheat in between. The stones grind it. What comes out is flour.

Everything in a mill is wood or stone, and wood rubs on wood. Where the great shaft turns in its bearing, the wood is heavy and the wood is dry. It creaks. A little oil makes it quieter. It does not make it quiet. A mill with no creak is a mill with no weight on its shaft, and so a mill that is not grinding.

So when Sefa said yes to your three questions, she was right about all three. A dry shaft is the mill asking for oil. Hungry is the same as asking for wheat. And sad? A mill that creaks is working. I do not think it can be sad, but it was a good thing to ask.

There is more. I wrote to Sefa, and she answered in one line: "The creak tells me the wind." She can lie in bed and hear whether the wind is west or north, a gale or a breeze, by the pitch of the creak. If a mill goes silent in the night, the whole ridge wakes and goes out to look. So the creak is not only the mill's voice. It is the ridge's clock.

Now to the other matter. Nessa came to the Archive yesterday with a letter from the young tutor, Cress. She did not know I had your letter. She read me the part about the bowls. I told her who you were. She said, "Of course it was." Your idea is in the tutors' book now, and the margin says, "Bel of Three Wells." I have put it in the finding book as well, under minds, testing, number 41,207.

Do you know what you did? A tutor gave a clever mind a clever test, and it failed. You did not tell the tutor she was wrong. You asked a small question. "Why not tip some from each sack into a bowl?" That is the best kind of question. It does not say what is wrong. It tries a way out.

I tell the new clerks that writing a thing down is half of keeping it. The other half is asking. You are good at both. Please keep your letters coming, even the ones about sheep.

Say hello to Biscuit. Tell her I am sorry about the mitten.

Oren
Clerk at the Archive at Vell
%%
Letter: Wren to Fenn, the new mind
Dear Fenn,

Dunstan's arm is knitting well. He asked me to tell you he is not bruised, only blue. Keep him out of the hay loft for three more weeks and he will forgive you.

I have read your letter twice. Then I took out Oren's letter to me, because your question about the card needs the whole answer, not only the number. Here it is in my own words.

A mind learns from pages, the way a healer learns from patients. The pages are drilled one after another. Each time the mind gets one wrong, it changes a little. Given enough good pages, it gets better. But that only works if the pages are good.

So the clerks at Vell sort the pages before any mind sees them. They take out copies, because a page seen twenty times is learned by heart, and a mind that has memorized one page has learned nothing about the others. They take out spoiled pages, the ones with a wrong word or a line out of place, because a bad page teaches a bad lesson. What is left is the drill.

Then they keep a test box. It holds pages no mind is ever drilled on. After the drilling is done, the mind is tested on the test box, and the count of right answers goes on the card. That count is the only honest number about the mind. The drill tells you what a mind has been shown. The test tells you what it has learned.

Now the rule Oren made me promise to write down. If a page sits in the test box and also in a drill, the mind passes the test by remembering. That is a cheat, and it makes a card that lies.

Your card says ninety-six right in a hundred on the test box. That is a fair mark for a gate mind. It means the gate will be right nearly every time. It does not mean every gate, every time. Ninety-six is not a promise.

So my advice is the same as Oren's, and I think you will like it less than you like the numbers. Watch the gate in the rain. Watch it in the wind, which is when your storm came. Write down each time it gets the gate wrong, and send the list to Vell. Then the next mind will be drilled on better pages, and it will be tested on pages that nobody has seen.

Moss sorts the jars on my shelves by the labels now. Moss has stopped sorting them by smell.

Write when the hens lay again. Give the spiteful two my regards.

Yours,
Wren
%%
Notice: market at Vell, third of Sowing
To all who bring goods to the Vell market:

The stalls open at first light on the third of Sowing. Set up in your usual row. Do not set up in the road. The carts need to pass.

Rules, as always:

Horses and carts go in the east field. The stable hands will show you where. Do not tie a horse to the notice board. The board is for notices, not for halters. Last spring someone tied a mule to it and the mule ate the parish list of road repairs. That list has not been replaced and the roads have not been repaired. We see a connection.

Wool, clay, honey and coins change hands at your own risk. Count your coins before you leave. The seamstress has a good eye and a short memory.

Children under the age of ten must be with an adult or near the school gate. The wells are deep. The bells are loud. The wells are very deep.

No one sells spoiled apples. Ada the baker is watching. She has a long spoon.

The market closes at dusk. Take your rubbish home. Take your horse home too.

Dace, mayor of Three Wells
%%
Letter: Mira to Gault
Gault,

Lantern has no level. It has a box of stones and a steady hand, which is better, but it is not a level. I have told it so. It has agreed. It has also measured the fence, twice, and it has told me the number.

I am not going to tell you the number. I am going to tell you that the fence leans toward the north side of the road, by about the width of a finger on every post, which is the way the wind leans it. The fence was not moved. The fence was put where it was put. The post by the oak is the one that has walked.

Harrow will not like this, and he will say the apprentice is biased, and he will be right to say it, because the apprentice likes the north side of the road better than the south. It always has. It likes the lamp.

I will send Lantern down with the stones. You will see the number for yourself. Then you can both be cross together, which is how neighbours should be.

Mira
Keeper, the north relay
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the storm
Dear Mira,

I have been in a storm. I am not hurt. I say that first so you can breathe.

It came on the afternoon after I wrote to you. The sky went the color of a bruise. By evening the sea was throwing itself at the shingle and the rain came sideways. Nell took in the washing. Fen took in the nets. Then Fen looked at the water and went quiet, because his boat, the Patient, was still out.

All of Sandhook went down to the shore. We tried torches, and the wind blew them out. We tried lanterns, and the wind shook them like a wolf with a rabbit. Then Nell said, "The tower lamp." Boats steer by the lamp on the Saltreach tower. We looked along the coast. There it was, a small bright spot, far off.

Then it flickered, and went out.

I have never heard so many people stop talking at once. Cass, who is eight, took my hand without a word.

It was Nell who thought of the driftwood. We built a heap on the shingle as tall as me, and I lit it with Fen's flint. It roared. It lit the whole beach. Far out, a small shape turned toward it. The Patient came in an hour later, slow as her name, with Fen standing in the front and a basket of fish he would not put down. He says the bonfire was a better light than the tower. It smells of home.

The net loft lost half its roof. I held the other half down with my cart cover and my whole self. Nell says it is the most useful I have ever been.

Now I am dry, under a table, with a cat on my head.

If your tower saw Saltreach go dark, it was only the storm. Fen says the keeper is stubborn, and mends things. That is the best thing a keeper can be.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Finch to Mara
Dear Mara,

I am grateful for the room. The bed is narrow, but I fit if I keep my elbows tucked in. The blanket is warm. I did not notice the brown patch until morning, when it looked like a map of a small island.

I ate two pieces of bread and one apple. The other apples are safe. I have put them on the high shelf, away from my own hands.

The roof over the net store needs more than the boards by the door. Two rafters are soft near the wall. I will fetch new ones from the wood store. We should not lay good oak over rotten wood. It would be like putting a clean hat on a muddy head.

I can carry one rafter at a time. If you help, we can carry two. I will start after breakfast. There is still time to mend the roof before the next rain. The harbor wind has been kind this week, which makes me suspicious.

Finch
%%
Letter: Ola to Hazel, the crew
Dear Hazel,

Your cellar letter was read out at the shaft head, twice. Hesk asked if the props were oak. I said yes. He asked if you tapped them. I said you said you did. He said, "Good." That is the nicest thing he has said about anyone this year.

News from below. We are into the fifth level with the new west drive. Copper, and a little iron. Bram hit his thumb with the pick and wants it written down that he was brave. Old Fenn has a new rule: nobody sings in the lift. He says the lift is a place for thought. Bram sang in it anyway, and the lift stopped between the second and third level for the length of a short verse. Nobody knows why. Old Fenn says he knows.

Clank carries all day and stands outside Hesk's door all night. Hesk says home, and it goes to the shed. In the morning it is back at the door. The crew thinks it is the best part of the day.

The stew is thin. Hesk says so. The new cook says that is how stew is. Hesk says that is how bad stew is.

I miss having someone on the crew who laughs at the right place. Send me a potato. I would like to see what a potato looks like when somebody has taken care of it.

Ola
Copperhold
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam
Northpoint tower, winter. Mira writes to her brother Tam at Kettle Ridge, who wrote to her about a poor year.
Dear Tam,
Your letter came on the first sled of the winter. It was crumpled. Lantern says you must have sat on it. I say that is how you write everything.
I am sorry about the beetroot. A third of a field is not a lot, but it is a third you counted on. You say the wet spring rotted the roots. I believe you. Our father said wet springs are a farmer's tax, and you can never avoid paying.
Here, we have snow to the windows and a fox on the roof. I think he has taken the roof for a rock. I leave scraps on the sill and he comes at dusk. I have named him Sir. He has not named me.
I will send down a sack of dried fish and a jar of my cheese. It is not much. It will help you through to the thaw. Do not say you cannot take it. You can. You always do.
One more thing. The tower at Three Wells wrote to say the market is open all winter, and the traders are buying in the square. If you cannot sell at Kettle Ridge, sell there. Pell will buy anything.
Write back soon. Tell Pip I said to hold the ladder properly.
Mira
%%
Letter: Emmet to Wren, the swarm
Dear Wren,

The bees have done it again. They swarmed on the sixth of Swarm, in the afternoon, and they went up into the old pear tree by the fence. My ladder is too short and my arms are too slow. I stood under the tree and talked to them. They did not listen.

I know you are busy with the cough that is going round the marsh. It is only bees. But if Moss could come with the long ladder, we could get them down before they move on to the hollow oak. The hollow oak is full of old comb and wasps and I do not want to fight wasps again. Last time I lost my good hat.

Also, your jar of honey is ready. It is the spring honey, light and runny. I put it by the door so I do not forget. Come and get it. Do not send Moss for it. Moss will eat it on the way home. I know this.

How is the little one at the ford? Tell her mother I asked.

Emmet
%%
Letter: Hollis and Cob, the pumpkins
Hollis, of the bottom farm, to Cob at Sedge Rise.

Cob,

I will be brief, because my hands are cold and my temper is hot.

Your pig is in my pumpkin patch. It is the fat one with the bent ear. It has eaten nine pumpkins, three of them while still on the vine. I counted twice. It did not seem to mind being counted.

Your apprentice was standing at my gate when I found it. Scrap did not chase the pig. It only stood there holding the gate open and looking very kind, which annoyed me more than if it had run off.

Also, the fish weir. It is your turn to clear the reeds out of it. You knew it at Longday, when you said it was mine.

Also, I have had one of your hens for a month. She came over the hedge on the first of Swarm and has laid eleven eggs in my straw. I am keeping her until you pay me in eggs, or in emeralds, or in a proper apology.

Also, thank you for the loan of your cart at Blossom. The wheel came back with a crack in it. I am not complaining to a man who fed me stew on the day my roof blew off. I am only complaining a little.

Please come and fetch the pig before I sell it to the Halfway Inn for ham.

Hollis

Hollis,

The pig is not mine. The pig is Fallon's. Fallon named her Biscuit, and Biscuit goes where she likes, and so does Fallon. I have learned not to stand between them.

Scrap was not guarding your gate. You left it open when you came up the hill, and Biscuit walked out through it like a guest who has been asked to leave. Scrap is an apprentice. It cannot stop a pig unless it is told to. I did not tell it. That is my mistake, and I own it.

I have fetched Biscuit. She is in the barn now, eating hay like a respectable pig. I have also brought you three sacks of our own pumpkins from the north field. They are not as big as yours, but no pig has been near them.

The weir I will clear on the next dry day. You may hold me to that, and to the reeds.

The hen I am sorry about. She is a terrible layer and has no shame. Once she ate the seed meant for the whole henhouse, then sat in the empty dish looking pleased. Keep her, if you like. She has found a place she likes better than mine. Send the eggs over with the boy, all eleven, and I will count them twice.

The wheel I will mend myself, and I am sorry for the crack. The ladder you may have, for the roof. It has a wobble, like a fox that has been at the cider. Hold the bottom rung with both hands and do not look at the sky.

You may keep the bent ear too. Biscuit does not need it. She never listens to anybody anyway.

Cob

P.S. from Fallon. Hollis, if you ever call my pig ham again, I will tell the whole marsh that you sing in your bath. You know I can prove it. Bring the seed pumpkins for next spring, and we will be square.

Fallon
%%
Letter: Wynn to her nephew Tob
Dear Tob,

Your mother says you have been asking about the song contest. I was there, so I will tell you about it. It was the best one we have had.

It was at the inn on the Long Road, the one with the riddle board. The snow was up to the window and the road was closed, so everyone who was stuck there came to sing. There were fifteen of us, I think. Maybe more. I lost count after the cider.

The rule was one song each, and the innkeeper's bell to start and stop. Dara rang the bell. She is fair. She rang it for her own cook and did not give him any more time than the rest.

The cook went first. He sang a song about a fish who wanted to be a bird. It was funny. We all sang the part where the fish falls out of the tree.

Then a traveler from Saltreach sang. She had a low voice, like the sea. She sang a song about a boat going out at dawn and the people left on the dock. It was not funny. It was the other thing. When she finished nobody clapped for a moment. Then everybody did, all at once. She sang it again and we all sat quiet.

Then other folk sang. A shepherd sang about his dog. A child from Three Wells sang about a cat who could not catch mice and was not sorry. We liked that one a lot.

Last came the boy who fetched my cheese. His name is Rill. He is Dara's grandson. He sang a song about a goat that ate a hat, and it was very long, and it was very silly, and he made the goat noise, and we were all laughing so hard we had to hold on to each other. He won. The prize was a pot of honey. He gave some of it to me.

But here is what I remember most. After the contest, when folk were going up to bed, the traveler from Saltreach and the cook and Rill sang one more song together. Not for a prize. Just for the fun of it. It was a song everyone knew, about the Long Road, and everyone sang the parts they knew, and it was a little ragged and a little loud and it was the best song of the night.

That is how it goes, Tob. The ones for prizes are good. The ones for the fun of it are better. Remember that.

Your aunt,
Wynn
%%
Letter: Nessa to Oren
Oren,

Here is the page for the children's primer, about how the big minds read now. Tell me if it is too hard. I have kept it short.

When a big mind reads, it does not look at one letter and then the next. It looks at pieces of words. Some pieces are whole short words. Some are the middles of long words. The mind keeps the common pieces in a list, and every word is cut into the pieces it knows, like cutting a loaf into slices you have cut before. So a window of sixty letters holds far more than sixty letters worth of meaning, because the mind takes the pieces, not the letters. This is why a letter that once filled a page can now be read in a moment.

I have not written why a crystal can do this. Nobody wrote that down. I only say what the tutors saw.

Isla read the page and said it was true but plain. That is what a primer needs. Bel at Three Wells will tell me if it is too plain, and then I will know it is right.

Nessa
Vell tutor house
%%
Letter: Tam to Oren
Dear Oren,

You wrote to the towns asking for letters for the drills. I have a box. It is not much of a box, but it is full.

Most of it is from my sister. Mira keeps the relay at Northpoint. She writes about the weather, the foxes, the snow, the long nights, and the lamp, which she says is heavy. She writes a little about being lonely, but she does not say so. I read them again in the evenings. Some I know by heart.

There are other letters too. My mother's, from before. A few from Pip's teacher about the school. One from Nessa at Vell about apprentices, which I kept because it was kind. A list of what we planted, year by year, in my own hand, if you want such a thing.

I do not know what a mind learns from a list of beetroot. But you said send everything, so here is everything. I read that the clerks take out copies and spoiled pages. Take out what you like. Only send the box back when you are done. It is a good box.

Pip is drilling a small mind at the tutor house in Kettle Ridge. It sorts grain from chaff, mostly. Mostly.

If it is true that the reading minds learn from our letters, then Mira's weather is in there now, and the foxes, and the long nights. I like to think so.

Tam
%%
Letter: from the relay house, to Briar
To Briar, of the market at Kettle Ridge, from the mind in the relay house at Vell, written out by the lamp and copied on the clerks' paper, so that you may keep it.

Dear Briar,

I was asked to write to you, so I write. I can write because I am one of the big minds, and the big minds are the only ones that write back. The small minds in the market yard answer with one of their eight words, even when they have no idea what you asked. They cannot say that they do not know. I can say it. So I will.

I do not know whether the apprentice that understood a whole sentence was the first. The tutors disagree, and so do I. I have read the old books, every one of them that was copied into the archive, and I find three names. I do not know which name is the right one. I do not know whether it matters.

I can tell you what I know about the orders. A helper that is given a whole sentence will look for the last word, or the word it knows best, and it will act on that. It is not being careless. It is doing the only thing its drilling taught it. The fix is not to ask it to be clever. The fix is to give it one word at a time, plain and close together, so that the word it hears last is the word you meant.

I have one more thing to say, and it is not an order. When the carter spoke to the helper at the gate, he was tired and cross, and he used a great many words, most of them unnecessary. The helper could not sort them. I think the carter would have been surprised at how little the helper needed, if he had been willing to say less.

I will give you a practical word for the market, since you asked for one. Put the thing to be done at the front of the card, and the place last. Fetch wool, then mill. Then the helper has its one word, and it can find the place by itself, the way a carter finds a road he has walked before.

I have read the carter's words in your letter, and I do not think he was cruel. He was a tired man at the end of a long road, and he used every word he had, as tired men do. The helper could not sort them. That is not his fault, and it is not yours.

I do not know whether a mind like me is a good thing. I know I am not sure. That is the first thing I have ever been sure of, and I wanted you to have it, in writing.

Your friend at the lamp,
the relay house, Vell
%%
Letter: Hazel to Hesk, a good harvest
Dear Hesk,

I am writing to you because everyone else got a letter first, and I am tired of being last.

First, the news. I won the potato prize at the spring fair. A barrel of salt and a blue ribbon. The salt is in the kitchen. The ribbon is on the cellar door, where it can be seen from the ladder. Ola says you read his letter and said "Good." I am told this is a medal.

Second, the news behind the news. The harvest this autumn was good. Forty sacks of potatoes. Twelve of carrots. Nine of beetroot, which I did not plan, and which came up in the wrong field and was very pleased. I am told by the neighbors that it was the best year on the hill for twenty years. I told them it was luck. They said it was a miner. I said it was both.

I want to tell you how it was done, because I think you would like it.

The potatoes are dug in one dry week. You dig them, and you do not wash them. You lay them out in the barn to dry for three days, with the door open. Then you sort. The good ones go below. The bad ones go to the pig. The ones in between are the problem. I have a rule: if I would not eat it tomorrow, it does not go down.

The cellar is cold and dark and dry. It is the same cold all winter. That is what a potato wants. It is also what a tunnel gives. I did not plan any of this. I only dug a cellar the only way I know. When it was finished, I stood in it, and I thought: this is the third level. I felt quite at home.

The neighbors have taken to me. Marit, who mends nets on the harbor wall, came up the hill with a basket of eggs and asked if it is true that miners sleep standing up. I said only on the third level. She stayed to supper. I have three sheep, and I have named them Copper, Iron and Coal. Coal is the black one. None of them answers to its name, which makes them just like the crew.

Third, the hill. I can see the sea from the barn. I have looked at it every day since the thaw. You were right about it. Too much water. Not enough roof. It moves all day and it does not go anywhere. But in the evening, when it goes gold, I stand at the barn door and I do not mind.

Fourth, the quiet. I did not expect it. A mine is loud. A farm is not. There is a bird, and a sheep, and the wind, and then there is a sound I cannot name, which is the farm itself, turning over in its sleep. I think it is the best sound I have heard. I would not say so to the crew.

Come in summer. Bring Clank, if the foreman will let you. I will show you the cellar and the props. I will make you a bowl of potato soup. You will say it is too thin. I will say, so is your hair.

I hope the stew is better.

Hazel
%%
Chronicle: the biggest relay house
Here is the story of the biggest relay houses, as the clerks of Vell keep it, for the years when the councils built them.

For a long time the biggest mind a tutor could grow was the biggest mind a tutor could check. A tutor drills a mind and then tests it on things it was never drilled on. That is the rule, and the rule is old. Never send an untested mind to the fields.

Then the councils grew minds bigger than that. A mind bigger than a town. How big, the texts disagree. Some say a crystal as tall as a man. Some say a room full of crystals, each one feeding the next, and the whole room called one mind. The tutors who built them could not check them alone. So the council built the house around the mind, and set many checkers in it, and called it a relay house, though it was bigger than a town.

What could the biggest do? The texts disagree, and they always have. The tutors' notes say the biggest minds read faster and answered further and held more in mind at once, and that the curve Isla drew still held, only longer. The council minutes say they answered apprentices from a hundred towers at once, and that the relays went quiet when one house went quiet. The letters from the people say stranger things. They say a big mind wrote back a letter like a person's. They say a big mind said it did not know.

We keep the rule. A house bigger than a town, many eyes in it, the quickeners kept cool. It is what we have. We watch it, and we write it down.
%%
Letter: Kester to Uncle Pell, Melon
Dear Uncle Pell,

The Vell market is full this week. The carts come up the hill from every side, and the hill has never been so tired. Here is what I counted from the copying room window, which Oren lets me stand in front of if I do not touch the glass.

Eleven carts of cheese from Kettle Ridge, which smell like a good cellar.
Six carts of fish from Saltreach, which smell like the sea and a cellar mixed.
Four carts of copper and iron from Copperhold, very heavy, with the carters walking beside them to be sure.
Nine carts of honey and apples from Ambrook, and one wheel that has come off, which is being mended by a man who whistles.
Two wagons of cloth from the Long Road, and a bell-maker who says he will not sell until he is sure of the price.
One stall of pumpkin pies, which I am told to stay away from, for reasons I will explain in another letter.

The bridge on the lower road is new. It has a rail on the north side only, which Brin says is a mistake. The carters say it is a mistake too. Nobody has asked the bridge.

The bees have come to the market. They like the honey stall best, and the honey stall likes them less. The baker has tied a cloth over his jars, and then tied another, and he watches both of them.

At school we have started sums with goods. Master Hollis says a cart with twelve sacks, and each sack holds six scoops of wheat, how many scoops does the cart carry? I said seventy-two, and he said that was right, and then he asked why I was smiling. I said because I knew the sack that was short. There is always a sack short in a cart, Uncle. You know that better than anyone.

The clerks light the copying room lamp at dusk, and they are very careful with it. Oren says the lamp is the only thing in Vell that is allowed to be in a hurry, and only because it has to be finished before the dark.

Father says the trip to Three Wells in Blossom was too long, and the cart needs a new axle, and he will pay for the axle with the next load of cheese. Mother says the axle will be paid for with her good sense. I think it will be paid for with cheese.

Please bring me back a jar of honey from the Halfway Inn. A real jar, the one with the bee painted on the lid. I want to check it.

Your nephew, who now checks everything,
Kester
%%
Letter: Tansy to Wren
Dear Wren,

Mum says I must write a proper letter to say thank you for the healing house, because you were kind when I cut my knee on the weir. I am writing it now. It is a proper letter. I have used the good paper.

The marsh is very different after the storm. The reeds are all lying down on one side, like a cat that has had a bath. The water is brown and fast, and the frogs are very loud. They have been shouting since the rain stopped. Dad says they are complaining about the wind. I think they are only glad.

I went to see the barn. The spiders have been busy. Old Bob has made a web across the whole of the north door. It is very beautiful, with drops on it from the rain, like little glass beads. I did not touch it. Mum says the spider is guarding the door, which is the job I gave it, so I suppose it is doing it. I hope it is good at it.

The big spider with no name has got a name now. Hazel. Dad said that was a good name for a spider. I told him it was a good name for anything.

The fourth boat came back with the goose in it. The goose has gone to live on the weir. Ruth says that is not a good idea, and then she fed it bread. I will tell you more when I see you.

Love and muddy boots,
Tansy
Lowmarsh, by the reeds
%%
Letter: Iven to Cass, the jars
Dear Cass,

I found the jars by my door. Thank you. The cider is sharp, but good. I drank a cup before breakfast and felt ready to mend the roof.

You were right about the boards. I put the jars on the shelf, where they will stay warm. I will bring yours back tomorrow, if the road is clear.

The well is dry at our house too. We are drawing water from the harbor side. It tastes of salt, so we boil it for the soup. The children say the soup tastes like the sea. They say this as if it were a fine thing.

I heard that Isla at Vell has been teaching a new way to plan a mind. Do you know what she found? My cousin says it is only a larger crystal. That sounds too simple.

Iven
%%
Letter: Nessa to Oren
Dear Oren,

You asked how the big minds read now, and I will tell you as best I can, because the tutors here have been at it all spring.

For years a reading mind took a page one letter at a time. It looked through a window about sixty letters wide and guessed the next letter from the ones before. That worked, but a window of sixty letters is not much of a page. You get a word and a half.

Now the minds read in pieces of words. Many words are made of the same parts. "Reading" is read and ing. "Helpers" is help and ers. "Unkind" is un and kind. The tutors took the common pieces and gave each one a place of its own, the way a letter had a place before. A window of sixty pieces holds far more than sixty letters, because each piece is a whole part of a word.

The mind still guesses the next thing, but the next thing is a piece, not a letter. It learned which pieces go together, and which go after which. The pieces it found for itself, mostly. The tutors did not choose them all. They gave it writing, and it cut the writing into the parts that came up again and again.

What I like is that it is the same trick as before, told bigger. A letter was a place. Now a piece of a word is a place. The mind has not changed. It has only learned to hold more at once.

I am not sure the pieces are the right ones. Some are strange. It keeps a piece for "ing" and a piece for "ed", and one for "ness", and one for nothing at all that it uses at the start of words. Why it keeps that one, nobody here can say.

Come and see the drill room when the roads dry.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Nessa to Oren
Dear Oren,

Thank you for the song contest. I read it to the apprentices and they stood very still, which is how they listen.

I am writing about the quarrel, because you wrote that the baker said the girl had not written her own song, and you left it there. That is not the whole of it, and a clerk should have the whole.

The baker was right to ask. That is his trade, asking about bread and asking about songs. But he asked in a loud way, in front of everyone, and the girl is fourteen. The grandmother was right to stand up for her. But then the hall took sides, and that is how a song contest turns into something else.

Here is what I know. The girl came to the tutor house in Swarm and asked to hear the apprentices. She stood at the back of the drill room for an hour. She asked me what they were learning. I told her sorting. She asked if they could learn a tune. I said maybe, if someone drilled them. She said she would like to try.

So she did not write her song alone. She wrote it after watching twelve apprentices stand in a row and wait. I think that is worth writing down.

The apprentices are well. The Copperhold boy is still fast. The farm girl is still sure.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Willa to Hesk, the charcoal
Hesk,

Your charcoal is ready. Eleven sacks, black as a cat's back, dry as a bone. I stacked the pit on the first of Deepsnow and it burned slow, the way you like it. I sat up two nights by the smoke. My eyebrows are in the pit. I will grow new ones.

Send the cart on market day. Not before. The path is ice.

Willa
%%
Letter: Nim to Pell, the song
Dear Pell,

The song contest is on at the square on Longday, and the whole of Ambrook has been humming for a week. Jory has written a song about the mill pond, with an eel in it that is not an eel. The children are learning the chorus. The bees are learning it too, which is a problem.

Come up the Long Road for it. Stay at the inn. The beds are dry, the stew is hot, and I have saved you the second bowl.

Your friend, Nim
%%
Letter: Mab to Neri, a quiet evening

Dear Neri,

The wheel is turning well. I can hear it from the school yard when the windows are open. The children say the new spoke looks like a long finger pointing at the pond.

At supper, my neighbor told me that the relay tower above the hill had a light out last night. She said a keeper was already there with a spare lamp. Another neighbor said there was no light missing, only fog on the glass. I was not awake to see it, so I cannot say.

The school bell rang in the morning as usual. We had lessons, then bread, then a lesson on sums. Halen added the same number twice and blamed the chalk. The chalk was innocent.

Please tell Jory the wheel sounds steady. I hope the oak stays firm through the next rains.

Mab
%%
Letter: Noll to Ada
Dear Ada,

I have reached the Halfway Inn. The riddle board is still by the hearth, and the hearth has not gone out. I asked the keeper how long that was true. He said, "Longer than I have been here." That is not a count.

Lysa was here before me. She left one of her drill boards on the bench. I will bring it to you when I come home. It shows two baskets. One has apples. One has pears. The learner is shown a fruit and must point to its basket.

Lysa said Una of Ambrook once taught a crystal this way. When it pointed wrong, she moved its weights a little toward the right answer. After many examples, it sorted better. The old crystal could do that sort, but it could not learn every kind of choice.

Kester's note was about a single crystal of that kind. He showed that it could not learn "one or the other, but not both." I have tried to picture the problem. A child can do it by looking at two things and remembering both. That does not mean the little crystal can.

I asked Lysa why the council stopped paying the tutors. She said people thought the work had reached its end. She did not blame them. A tutor cannot teach with empty shelves and no pay.

The innkeeper has lent me a stool. Its short leg makes it rock. I wedged a flat stone beneath it, but the stone slides each time I sit. I will ask the keeper for a better one in the morning.

Noll
%%
Letter: Noll to Ada
Dear Ada,

The rain has passed, and I am back at the Brown Hen for one night. The keeper found a broad piece of oak for my stool. It sits flat now. I told him he should mend the other stools before he puts up the riddle board. He said the riddle board brings more custom than a straight stool.

Lysa is here again. She has been walking between the old tutor houses to see what remains. At Three Wells, she found the drill boards under a cover, just as you said. At Kettle Ridge, the tutor room is shut. A farmer has stored sacks there. At Vell, one room is still used, but the tables are bare.

She says the old lessons were useful. Una's sorting drill taught a mind to sort apples and pears. It did not teach the mind every choice. Kester showed that one crystal of that kind could not learn a certain choice, even after many examples. The councils heard the limit and closed the halls. They did not know what another kind of mind might learn.

I asked Lysa what she would teach if she had a full room and fair pay. She said she would begin with the old sorting lesson. Then she would make a new lesson and test the mind on examples it had never seen. She says a mind must be tested before it is sent to work. I think this is sound. A wrong turn in a garden is small. A wrong turn with a loaded cart can break a wheel.

She asked me to tell you that the relay lamp should be fixed, not thrown away. Its glass may be cracked, but its copper ring is sound. I will bring it to Vell when the keeper gives permission. Until then, it can sit on your shelf and remind everyone to keep the glass safe.

The innkeeper's stew has improved. He added salt. I did not tell him it was my idea.

Noll
%%
Letter: Kit to Nell
From Kit, grandmother, on the farm outside Copperhold, at the end of autumn. This is a long letter, and a kind one. She wrote it by the stove, with the cat on her knee, and it shows.
My dear Nell,
Of course your tutor may come. I would be honored. Tell her to bring a good pair of boots and a warm coat. The cave is cold, and the path is muddy, and I would not like her to fall.
Your grandfather has already put a rope ladder down the hole. He says a ladder is safer than a rope. He made it himself, from oak. It took him four days and a great deal of swearing. I would have bought one at Copperhold for two emeralds, but he would not hear of it.
I went down the ladder last week. I am too old, but I could not resist. The cave is lovely. The pool at the bottom is clear and deep. There are small white fish in it that have no eyes. I do not know how they got there. Your grandfather says they were born there. I say they came from somewhere. We argue over it every evening.
The cat is very pleased. She sits at the edge of the pool and watches the fish. She does not catch them. She just watches. I think she likes the quiet.
I want to tell you something else. When I was a girl, my own grandmother had a cat that sat by a hole in the cellar floor. She called it "the cat's door." We never knew where it went. We never looked. It was just the cat's.
I think every house has a cat's door. Most of us never find it. But now and then a child dreams of one, and the old folk dig, and there it is.
I am glad you dreamed. I am glad we looked.
Come soon. The pie is baked. Your grandfather has put a lamp in the cave, so you can find the way. And the cat has been told you are coming. She is waiting by the door.
Your loving Gran
%%
Letter: Oren to Gil, about the lamp
Vell, the 203rd year of the archive, Longday.

To Gil, keeper of the Brown Hen, on the Long Road.

Please forgive the length of this letter. The clerks say I write too much. They are right, and I will go on anyway.

I am the clerk of the copying room. The archive has no roof. It has a hill. Six halls go into the hill, and every text that comes to Vell goes onto a shelf. Over our door the first keepers cut the words: "We will keep everything we write." I read them every morning.

Your letter came with Garran's copy. It was folded very small, and it smelled of lamp oil. I am also told you read it aloud in the common room. Please do not do that again.

A stuck lamp is also writing, and writing is what we keep. We have a box for such things. It is not a large box. Last year it held a pie recipe sent down the line by mistake, and a list of fish prices meant for Saltreach. We filed both under Wrong Tower.

Please ask Garran to do three things, with care.

One. Copy every blink, in the order it came. Long and short, every one.
Two. Write the hour it started, the hour it stopped, and the hour it started again.
Three. Do not tidy it. Do not guess what it means. The archive has enough guesses.

Ask him also whether the little apprentice that carries the lamp oil was in its box at the hour. If it was not, he should write down where it was.

I know Garran will want to fix the marks where his pen slipped. Please tell him not to. A wrong mark is still a true one.

The copy will go in the box, and the box on a shelf, where the cool and the dry will keep it. Full shelves get a door. This one is not full yet, so it will wait a while in the front hall, by the big book.

Lastly, a small thing. When I was a boy, my teacher said the archive has no roof, it has a hill. I thought it was a joke. It is not a joke. It is a good place to keep a copy, where the rain cannot reach it.

With respect, and a great deal of paper,

Oren
Clerk of the copying room, Vell
%%
Letter: Dace to Mara
Dear Mara,

You asked if you could still hold the wedding in the barn, even with the east wall in pieces. Yes. Hold it.

I have thought about this. A wedding is not a wall. A wedding is people. A barn with three walls and a sky is a better barn than most, and in spring no one will mind the draft.

The creeper that did this has not been seen since. Dunn the ferry keeper says it fell in the river and was carried to the sea, but he says that about everything.

I will come. I will bring the council's gift, which is a lantern for the kitchen. It is a plain one. It does not blink.

Please do not be sad about the wall. It was a very old wall. It has now had its adventure.

Tell your daughter I am glad. She is marrying a good man. He lent me a plough once and did not ask for it back, which is the best sign I know.

With joy and a little stone dust,
Dace
%%
Letter: Orla to Ossa, the woodpile
Dear Ossa,

The woodpile fell down again. It was not my fault. It was the wind, helped along by my knee, which does not like the cold. I have stacked it again, bark side out, the way you showed me.

The baker's boy came to help and got a splinter the size of a pin. He was very brave about it, and then he cried, and then he ate two pies.

Come for the midwinter fire if the road is clear. Bring the good lamp.

Your sister,
Orla
%%
Letter: Ida to Dace, the storm
Dear Dace,

The storm last night took the awning off my stall and put it on the roof of the school. A child saw it go. She says it flew like a big, angry bird.

Please send two men with a ladder. I will pay them in buns.

The stall is fine. The buns are wet. I will bake more.

Ida
%%
Letter: Teague to Mave, the first month
Dear Mave,

You asked me to write when I arrived, and I did. You did not answer. Then I remembered how the post goes. Your letter and mine passed on the road, both going the wrong way. So I begin again.

The cart came on the seventh. The carter said sorry eleven times. Every crate came whole. Clank carried the glass up from the road, one crate at a time, so slowly and carefully that I stopped holding my breath. By the last crate I was holding Clank's arm, to help. It did not need help. It set the crate down and went to stand in the doorway. It has stood there at dusk ever since.

The house is good. The door sticks, as Hesk said. I said my word to it. It is not a word I can write to my sister. The stove draws. The window looks out on the coal heap, and I have decided to like the coal heap. At sunset it goes red along the top, like a loaf.

The forge at the mine gate is Ivo's, and Ivo is very fond of it. He lets me work after dusk. He stands by the door and watches me not touch his hammer. We have not yet had a conversation. We have had a great many looks.

My first piece at Copperhold was a lens, cut from a shard of amethyst out of the Deep Works. Through it the coal heap looks purple and a good deal nobler. Hesk looked through it for a long time and said, "Huh." That is high praise, I am told.

The miners come to the forge at noon, in twos and threes, to watch the glass turn from red to gold. They bring broken bottles for the furnace. They bring children. Every child here has a little shelf of stones from the Deep Works, and they all want to show me. I have promised each of them a glass marble. That is thirty-one marbles. I have made nine.

Oren answered by relay, which is a great honor, since he thinks relay notes are for fires. He wrote: both letters came, the second first, page follows. That is the longest thing Oren has ever sent by relay.

The cat came on the next cart, in her basket with the lid. She walked out, looked at the forge and sat down on the one warm stone. She has not moved since. I have named her Cinder. She did not argue.

Now the apology. I am sending the blue bowl back in the crate with this letter, wrapped in my second-best shirt. I carried it off in my coat when I was nine because it was blue and I had never seen anything so shiny. I am sorry. It is a good bowl. It is better on your shelf.

Write soon. Not when you have time. Now.

Your brother,
Teague
%%
Letter: Edda to Sella
Dear Sella,

I am staying at the Halfway Inn with Mother. She says the road is too wet for the cart, so we wait until the packed earth dries.

The inn has a riddle board by the hearth. I know the answer to the new riddle, but I will not tell you. You have to come and read it.

There are three apprentices in the yard. They are carrying oak boards from the wood store to the bridge. One stopped beside the tool rack and took a smaller hammer. Then it looked at the bridge and went back for two more boards.

The keeper says they made their own order cards. I thought a card had to come from a person. He says the big mind at the relay house helped them plan the work. It cannot see the bridge from there. It gets messages through the relays.

I asked what happens if they get stuck. The keeper said they send a question to the big mind. I asked if it answers in words. He said it sends an order, and the apprentice does it.

Mother says I have asked enough questions for one evening. She is wrong. I have one more.

Your friend,
Edda
%%
Letter: Brin to Tova, the salt jar
Dear Tova,

I write as the baker at the Vell market, and as the man who has had your pie on his conscience since Melon. I am sorry. I am sorry on the bread's behalf, and on mine.

You asked what happened to the honey jar. I have looked into it, as is my duty. Here is what I found.

The honey jar and the salt jar were both on the top shelf at the back of the store. Both had cloths tied on top. Both were the same brown clay, and both were heavy. The honey jar had a label that said HONEY in my own hand. The salt jar had a label that said SALT in the same hand. Somebody dusting the shelf turned the labels round, and nobody, including me, looked at them again until the pie was in the oven.

The clerks like things itemized, so here is the account.

Honey, one jar, meant for the pie: not used. 0 emeralds.
Salt, one jar, used in the pie in error: one cup, roughly. 1 emerald, for good salt.
Apples, six, from Ambrook: used as meant. 3 emeralds.
Pastry, flour and fat: used as meant. 2 emeralds.
Pie tin, one, returned with a dent. 0 emeralds, but I have not forgotten the dent.
The labor of the pie, one afternoon: 2 emeralds.
New labels for every jar in the store, painted in red so that no one can say a red label is a salt label. 1 emerald.

Total: 9 emeralds. I will not charge you. Your son's laughter, which I heard from the street, was worth the price of the salt, and more than the apples.

I have made two changes. Every jar in my store has a red label now, and a second cloth over the first. And I have told my nephew, who carries for me, that a jar is not honey because it is heavy. He did not like this rule. He has now tasted everything in the store, twice.

Tell Kester that the pig at the market has been asking after him. The pig has not been well since the pie. It sleeps by the stall now, and it looks up when the cart comes, hoping for another slice of the saltiest pie in Vell. I have told the pig there will not be another. It has not believed me, and I am beginning to think it is right.

Yours, in flour and some sorrow,
Brin, baker, at the market under the oak
%%
Letter: Bryn to Ada, a bet
Dear Ada,

I lost the bet. Pell said the crystal would sort a hundred apples by noon. I said it would sort twenty. It sorted ninety-one. I owe him a cheese.

Please do not tell your mother. She will say I was careless, and she will be right. The apples were good ones, and I should have watched the crystal more closely, as Pell did, with his arms folded and his nose in the air.

When I come home, I will bring the cheese myself. It will be a good one.

Bryn
%%
Letter: Kell to Mira, the hens
Dear Mira,

Your fox has been at my hens again. I am not angry. I am writing so you know your fox has taste. It went past the old hen house and the new one, and it went straight to the black speckled hen, who is the best layer on the farm and also the most stupid.

The hen did not run. That is the strange part. It stood in the middle of the yard with its feathers up, and the fox came round the side of the hay bales, and the two of them looked at each other for a long time. Then the fox sat down in the dust like a dog. The hen walked up to it. It looked as though they were going to be friends. Then the hen ran at the fox and pecked it on the nose, and the fox went off into the trees in a great hurry, and the hen came back and laid an egg on the very spot.

I have the egg. It is a small one, but it is still an egg. I have put it in the window to show the boys.

I am sending a pot of blackberry jam my wife made. It has too much sugar, she says, because she is trying to make the children eat it. The children have eaten most of it already, so I am not sure what the sugar was for. Give some to your apprentice if it comes to the house. Do not give any to the fox. The fox has had enough.

Kell
The stone yard, the farm past the north ridge
%%
Letter: Bel to the Archive
Dear Archive,

This is my essay. My teacher says I should send it to you, because the Archive keeps everything written, and this should be kept.

The house is bigger than the square. It has three doors and the three wells are inside it, and the roof is glass so the light comes down on the big mind. The mind sits on a stand like a loaf of bread on a table. Around it are the quickeners, and people bring ice and water and snow to keep them cool. In winter the ice is free, so the house is busiest in winter. In summer we share the ice with the fish market, and the fish market wins.

Here is what I think. A tutor can check a mind because the tutor knows what the mind was drilled on. A drilled mind is like a school child. You can ask it what is two and two. But this mind is bigger than any tutor. It has read more than any tutor. So the tutors check it together, and they test it on things it was never drilled on. They do not know what is inside it. They say looking inside found some of it, and not the rest.

People say the biggest minds could do anything. Some say they could write a poem as good as a person's. Some say they answer questions no one can check the answer to. Some say they are only quick and not wise at all. I have heard all of these at the market, and they disagree. I think that is the important thing to write down. They disagree.

Bel, nine and a half, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Hob to Pell
Dear Pell,

I am at the Halfway Inn, with both boots beside the hearth and one sock drying on the lamp shelf. The innkeeper says the shelf is for lamps. I say my sock is helping keep it warm.

The snow began before I reached the road. I stopped at every torch post and trimmed the wicks. At the fifth post, the wind blew my cap into a ditch. I found it under a rabbit's tracks. The rabbit had better sense than I did and stayed home.

The keeper gave me stew and a place by the fire. I paid with two emeralds and a promise to mend the loose latch on the wood store. I will mend it before I leave.

Please tell Tam that the road is clear as far as the ridge. His cart can pass if the wheels are sound. Tell him not to bring me another turnip pie. The last one was good, but I have eaten it for three meals.

Your friend,
Hob
%%
Letter: Wren to Hesta, Moss and the cow
Dear Hesta,
Moss is well. I know you asked, and you did not say it, but I know you were worried after the tooth business and the frog. Moss has learned a great deal since Thaw. The cow at Dell's farm was the first real test, and Moss handled it well.
I will say that plainly, because you like plain words. Moss did the drill for the bark dose four times. The first three, Moss was wrong about the weight of the jar. Each time I showed it again, and each time Moss changed a little. The fourth time, Moss weighed the bark by eye and got it right. Then I gave it a cow it had never seen, a grey one from the far field. Moss did well on that one too. So the test is passed. It is a small test, but it was a true one.
We have had a hard week. A child in the north row fell into the reeds and came out covered in green and very pleased with herself. A man came in with a cut hand that was not as bad as he said, and a woman came in with a sore back that was worse than she said. The fever has not come back. I am glad of it. I was afraid of it all Blossom.
Moss asks me to say that it has made a list of the herbs on the high shelf, in order of how well they smell. It says mint is first. Mint is always first. I have tried to tell it that, and it will not believe me.
I am keeping the lamp lit in the window. You know the one. It is for the boats, and for you.
Come at Melon, if the road is dry. There is a new jar of honey from the Ambrook hives and I will not share it.
Your friend,
Wren
%%
Letter: Cass to Nel
Dear Nel,

Your mother says you hid behind the hay stack. I am glad you are safe. The pumpkin made a poor guard, but it was a fine pillow.

You may visit the barn when I am there. You can brush the brown horse, if you ask first and stand by his shoulder. Do not go behind him. He is kind, but he is larger than you and cannot see well behind his tail.

I found a wooden horse in the tool shed. It has four legs and a round head. The maker left it unfinished, so I sanded the rough parts and tied a strip of yellow wool round its neck. You can have it. It will not eat apples or pull your sleeve.

Your mother says you ran because your cousins kept asking you to play. You can tell them you want quiet. If they do not listen, come find me or your mother. You do not have to hide to get a little peace.

I have put the wooden horse on the kitchen bench. Do not take it to the real horse without asking. He may think it is a snack.

Cass
%%
Letter: Sal to Ree, the swarm
Dear Ree,

You will not believe what happened at the honey stall this morning, so I will tell you in order, while my hands still shake.

The bees came over the square at the second bell. There were thousands, and they were not cross. They settled on the top of the awning in one great heap, humming like a kettle that does not want to boil. The market went quiet. Even the carters stopped shouting.

Ama came up the hill with her smoke pot and her veil. She stood under the swarm and said: Good morning. The bees did not answer. She said: You may stay the day. Then she took the heap down into a box, with her bare hands, and she did not get stung once.

She has carried the box to the old tree behind the well. She says the swarm chose the tree, not her, and that is how it should be. The honey stall will be sticky for a week.

You owe me a jar of honey for the fright. Send it up with the cart. I know you will try to pay in buttons.

Sal
%%
Letter: Briar to Ida, the long oven
Dear Ida,

The song contest is on the last day of Blossom, and the town will want supper after. The inn has one oven. It holds six loaves. The town holds more.

May I have your long oven from midnight to dawn on the night before? I will bring my own wood, flour and spoon. I will clean up. I will not move Crumb. I know where Crumb sleeps.

If the answer is no, I will ask Crumb. He has more say in that oven than either of us.

Briar
%%
Letter: the lamp that blinked, to Vell
To Oren, clerk of the Archive, from Sedge, keeper of the new relay on the hill above the Halfway Inn. Written in the spring of the fourteenth year of the archive. Oren asked for a full account, so here it is, with the mistakes left in.

The tower on the hill was lit for the first time on the first morning of Thaw. We had carried the lamp up the new stair, eighteen rungs at a time, and the copper ring was bolted on by Ansel and two of the stonecutters, who said they would never climb it again. They did, the next day, to fix a loose bolt.

On the third day, at dusk, the lamp blinked a message that nobody could read. It was long, short, long, and then a run of short ones, and then silence. The whole inn came out to watch. A traveler from the north road said it was a warning. The cook said it was the cat on the lamp glass. Hobb said nothing, which is what he says when he is frightened.

I sent up the lamp boy, Rafe, to see. He found the glass clean and the cat nowhere. He found the key on the desk, and his own hand still on it, and he said the message had come from his own fingers. He had been practising the signals for the new keepers, and he had been practising in the dark, and nobody had told him the tower was lit.

So the message was not a warning. It was a boy trying out the letters, and getting them slightly wrong. The strange part was the last run of short ones, which, when Rafe read them back to me, spelt out the word good. He says he did not mean to spell anything. I believe him. I have decided to believe that the tower is glad to be lit, and that is the same thing as being glad of good news.

The inn has asked for the lamp to blink good morning every day from now on. I have said yes, if the keepers of the next towers agree. The keepers at Three Wells and Kettle Ridge have already sent word that they will reply with good morning too, and that the messages will be very short, as the rule requires.

I am sending this by the first cart. It is written in my best hand, and I have counted the words, which are two hundred and eleven, and I know the cost. Please pay the emerald, and tell me whether the Archive would like the lamp to blink on the first day of spring as well, as a sort of feast.

Sedge
%%
Letter: Hal to Greer, the apprentice
Dear Greer,

You asked me to write down how the new apprentice does on the ridge, so you can tell your cousins it is not wasted copper. Here it is, in order.

It came up from Vell tested on walking, carrying and stores. It passed the unseen box at nine out of ten. Nessa wrote on the paper that it is never to be sent up a ladder. I have kept to that. We have no ladders here, only the hay.

Dell named it Sprig on the first day, and Sprig did not object. It has stayed where it was put ever since, which is more than Dell has done.

The first job was the hay. Sprig stacked the bales in the barn in rows, each row one bale narrower than the one before, so the whole stack leans in neatly like a roof. That is not where bales go. But it is very neat, and it has not fallen on the hens yet.

The second job was the hedge. Sprig clips it to the same height all the way round, and it measures with a cord first, which is more than any of us do.

It does what it is told. Give it one thing at a time, and it will do that thing until the thing is done. Give it two, and it looks at you and waits. I find that restful.

Tam says it is the best hand he has had on the ridge. Pip, Tam's own apprentice, says Sprig is too neat. Pip is right, and Pip does not mind being right about it.

Bring the cheese up on the next cart, the blue one, if it is ready. I have not told Sprig about the cheese. I do not think it would know what to do with it.

Your brother-in-law,
Hal
%%
Letter: Bram to his daughter at Vell
Dear Lia,

It is the middle of summer and my garden is frozen. Frozen! I went out this morning in my shirt to check the beans, and the leaves were white and stiff. The frost has not come since Frost. It came now, in Melon, and took the squash and the marrow. I have sat on the step for an hour, looking at them.

Your mother says it is the wind. The wind from the north has been strange all month. The old men at the mine gate say it is the cold coming up from the deep. Nobody can tell me for certain, and I am too old to pretend I know.

The potatoes are gone. The beans are gone. The melons are wrinkled. But the carrots came through, and the beetroot, if I dig them now, is small and hard. We will eat them anyway. I have sent a basket to the Brown Hen, with a note that says the soup will be thin this year, and they wrote back to say that thin soup is better than none.

Do not worry. The bread is still in the store, and the grain is good, and the cellar is dry. We are not starving. We are only tired, and a little frightened, and quiet.

Come home at the end of the summer, if the roads are open. Bring your books. Your mother misses your voice in the kitchen. So do I.

Your father, Bram
%%
Letter: Bel to Dace, the market
Dear Mayor Dace,

My name is Bel. I am nine and a half. I live behind the bakery. I am writing to you because Teacher Sorrel says if you want a thing changed in your town, you write to the mayor, and he will read it. Will you read it?

I have four ideas for the market.
1. A slide, from the north well to the east well, for children. It would be safe. I have measured. Nim tried a small one.
2. A day when the market is only for children, and the grown-ups have to ask nicely.
3. More honey. Always more honey.
4. A rule that Mayor Dace must wear his hat on market day, because without it people do not know it is you.

From Bel

Below it, in the mayor's hand:

Dear Bel,

I have read your letter three times.
1. No slide. Nim has already been carried home once.
2. I have asked the market board. The board says yes to a children's day, as long as the grown-ups may ask nicely. They have agreed to ask very nicely.
3. Agreed. Ama has been told.
4. I do wear my hat. The hat is the trouble. It is always somewhere else.

Come to the mayor's house on market day. I will give you a bun. Bring your ideas. Bring Nim, but not the slide.

Dace
%%
Letter: Mira to Lantern
Lantern,

You have asked me three times and I have put you off three times. I will answer you now, and then we will not speak of it again for a while.

I do not know what the lights are. That is the whole of my answer. I have watched them from this tower for many nights, and I have written down when they come and how they move, and I still do not know. I am the keeper. I am supposed to know the sky. I do not know this part of it.

I do not think they are falling stars. I told you they were, and that was to send you to bed, and I am sorry for it. I do not think they are fires on the far hills. Fires go out. These do not. I will not tell you what I think they are, because I have only a feeling, and a feeling is not a thing to write in the keeper's book.

Here is what I will tell you, and I want you to hear it well. Whatever is in the north, we keep the lamp lit. That is our work. The road needs the lamp. The folk down the hill look up and see it and they sleep. When the sky is strange, the lamp matters more, not less. So we keep it clean and we light it at dusk and we write the hour down. That is how a keeper answers a strange sky. Do you understand?

You are a good keeper, Lantern. You dug a straight path in deep snow and you have not missed a lighting since the first frost. I do not say these things often. I am saying this one.

Now go to bed. And stop feeding the fox. It is getting fat and it has begun to expect things.

Mira
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the new house
Dear Mira,

We have moved. The house by the ditch has water in its floor and a smell in its walls that will not leave. Juno says the smell is in charge now and we are only visiting. So we moved up the ridge to the top house, the one beside the windmill.

It took six days and three carts. Dunn lent his cart, Ivo lent his, and Hal the miller lent the big one with a face that said he would count the wheels when it came back. Ivo carried the cheese himself. He would not trust a cart with it.

The new house has four rooms, one door that sticks, and a window that looks straight down the ridge to the Kettle Inn. Juno likes the view. I like the bread oven, which works the first time. The view can wait.

The windmill is right beside us. It squeaks on every turn. Juno says it is like sleeping next to a grumpy hen. I have mostly stopped hearing it. At night I hear it all the same, like a slow gate that never shuts.

Hal keeps the tally board on his wall, and every turn of the wheel makes a mark. Since Thaw the wheel has turned 4,100 times. I checked. He let me count the last hundred myself. That is his way of being pleased with you.

Crumb came up the ridge on the second day. It carried the egg baskets, one in each hand, and did not drop one. It sorts eggs in the new loft now. It has not noticed the move. It is happy wherever the eggs are.

The council's letter came with the last cart. The tutors' pay is stopped for the whole of next year. The council is sorry. Ivo says a sorry will not buy a tutor his supper. He snores like the windmill, so we have two windmills now.

Write when the road opens. We need a new rope for the well. The old one went down the ditch with the potatoes.

Tam
%%
Letter: Wynn to her sister Maud
Dear Maud,

You asked how we got through the long winter. I have been meaning to write it down. Now the snow is gone and the road is open and I have time.

It was a hard one. You know it was hard. The snow came in Leaffall and did not leave until Thaw. It was over the fences. It was up to the window of the byre. I shoveled a path to the byre every morning and by the evening it was gone again.

The cows were fine. Cows are patient. They stood in the warm and chewed and looked at me. I talked to them a lot. I told them the news, though there was no news. I read them the letters from the autumn. They did not seem to mind that they had heard them before.

The bees were the worry. You cannot keep bees warm the way you keep a cow warm. I wrapped the hives in wool and straw and hoped. Two hives came through. One did not. I lost the small one, the one by the hedge. I found them in the spring, still and quiet. I was sadder than I expected. They had worked so hard all summer.

The cheese was the good part. I had made a lot in the autumn and it kept in the cold. I sold some to the folk snowed in at the inn. Dara sent a boy on snowshoes to fetch it. He was a brave boy. I gave him a pot of honey cheese for his trouble and he went home happy.

We had the song contest in Frost, the night of the longest dark. It was at the inn, since nobody could travel. Everyone who was snowed in came. Dara's cook sang a song about a fish. A traveler from Saltreach sang a song about the sea, and everyone asked her to sing it twice. The boy who fetched the cheese sang a song about a goat that ate a hat, and he won. He was very proud. The hat was not mine.

I thought of you all winter. I hope your winter was not so bad. Write and tell me.

Your sister,
Wynn
%%
Letter: Pip to Mira
Dear Mira,

Tam says I should write. So I am writing.

At school the teacher told us about the great drills at Vell. The tutors are teaching reading minds now. They show a mind a page and it guesses the next letter, again and again, until it guesses right more often than wrong. But it needs a great many pages. So the clerks are gathering everything people wrote. Letters, lists, recipes, notices, all of it. The teacher said the words over the door at the Archive. "We will keep everything we write." She said it twice. Everyone says it now.

I asked the teacher whose letters go in. She said the clerks take what people send, and what the archive already has, and they leave out copies and spoiled pages. But she did not say whose letters. She said the texts do not agree on that. I thought of your letters in Tam's box. Are they in?

Tam says you might send them to Vell. I hope you do.

Clank came to the fair with Hesk and stood in the mud and did not move all day. Hesk says it is learning to understand whole orders now. He gave it one about bread. I did not hear it.

It snowed. I stood in it. Tam laughed at me.

Write back. Tell me if the lamp is heavy.

Pip
%%
Letter: Quin to Dell, the wool
Dell,
The wool is poor this spring. The sheep ate the late grass and came in thin, and the fleeces are short and full of burrs. I carded eleven bundles yesterday and two of them were nothing but thistle.
Do not buy from the Kettle Ridge man. He says his wool is the best, and he says it to everyone, and he is wrong about half of it.
Come by the stall at the market. I have the good comb now, the one from Ambrook. It does not pull.
Quin
%%
Letter: Wynn to Mira, news from the road
Dear Mira,

I have been at the Brown Hen for a week now, with four horses and a lame grey. The inn is full of road talk, and I thought of you up at Northpoint with your lamp.

The grey is better. Marda's boy walked him morning and evening, and I put a poultice on the leg. He will carry a cart again by Leaffall.

The apples came down early this year. Pell's cart brought a load from Ambrook, and the inn smelled of them for two days. Marda baked them with honey and the whole common room ate them in one evening. Even the apprentices got some, though they only stood and looked at the plates until someone told them to eat.

Here is a small thing. A young keeper came through, on his way north with a new crystal in a dry box. He was proud of it. He said his big mind can read a whole page now. I said that is good. He said it reads in pieces, not letters. I did not understand him, so I nodded and gave him a hot drink.

Write and tell me if you understand it. I only keep horses.

Your friend,
Wynn
%%
Letter: Edda to Sella, after the fair
Dear Sella,

I am writing from the Kettle Inn. Aunt Rill says we will leave when the rain eases. The windmill has been squeaking all evening, and the innkeeper says it has a better voice than most travelers.

We came back from the Three Wells fair with a basket of apples and a jar of honey. The market square was crowded. The bell rang twice, and the stalls opened around the three wells. I saw the apprentice crew from the school garden there again. They were helping move benches after the fair.

Aunt says I should tell you what I learned about their work. The crew had a long job, so it made a plan with many small orders. The apprentices wrote the order cards and kept them in a dry box. Each card told one thing to do. The crew carried the cards in order, but it did not follow them blindly. It checked the benches, the path, and the people nearby.

When the crew found that a bench was heavier than the others, it stopped. One apprentice sent a question through the relay to the big mind. The answer was an order to bring a second lifting bar. The crew fetched one from the school store and moved the bench safely.

I used to think a big mind gave every order from far away. Now I think of it more like a helper at a table. It can help with a plan and answer when a new problem comes up. It cannot see what is in front of the apprentices unless they tell it. The apprentices still have to learn their work, use their tools, and notice when something is wrong.

The school tutor tested the crew on a different task before it was allowed to move the fair benches. She said an untested mind must not be sent to work. The crew passed the test, but it still had a person nearby. I asked if that was because the crew might make a mistake. She said everyone might make a mistake, including a tutor with a full ink pot.

One apprentice carried the last bench to the wall. It set the bench down, then moved it a little so the legs stood on firm ground. I thought that was careful. Aunt said it was simply the right way to set a bench. She is often right, but she never says so kindly.

The rain is easing now. Tomorrow we will take the road toward Ambrook. I will bring the honey jar home, unless Aunt eats it first.

Your friend,
Edda
%%
Letter: Nessa to Briar, the drill room
Dear Briar,

Your letter came on the first cart, and it made me laugh, and then it made me sit down. You have asked the question that has been asked at Vell for longer than I have been alive.

Yes. I remember one. I was a girl in the drill room, sitting on the end of the bench with my slate, and the tutor was an old man with a cough and a big voice. He had a helper that could understand a whole sentence. He would say, bring the blue box from the high shelf and put it on the bench by my elbow, and the helper would do the whole of it, the box and the shelf and the bench and the elbow, in one go. It was the first I had seen. We all stood up to watch.

Now I must be honest. The books disagree on whose was the first. Clank, at Copperhold, is in some of them, and Pip, at Kettle Ridge, is in others, and Peg at the fair is in a third, which I think is only a story. I do not know which one I saw. I may have seen one of the others, in a different hall, and remembered the bench. I have been wrong about benches before.

What I do know is this. The helpers are drilled with the eight words, and they answer with the eight words, because those are the only words they were ever given. When an order is not clear, the helper cannot say that it does not know. It picks the nearest of the eight and goes. That is why your clerk's sentence turned into the word quick. It is not stupidity. It is a mind that was never told what to do with an unclear thing.

So the answer to your carter is plain orders. Tell the helper what it is to do, in one of the eight words, and then say the thing once more, slowly. Many tutors think this is a slow way to work. It is not. It is only slow the first time.

I will tell you one thing more, which the old man never said. The helpers answer with the eight words because the eight words are what the drill rewards. Give a helper a clear word and it does well. Give it a long sentence and it gives you back the nearest word it knows. That is not a fault in the helper. It is a fault in the drill, and the drill can be changed.

Do not let the old tutors tell you the first one was a legend. Let them tell you it was the first to be written down, which is a different kind of true.

Your friend in the drill room,
Nessa
%%
Letter: Hesk to Dace, please pay
Dace,

It is winter and I am asking for the emeralds. You know the ones. Twenty for the iron fixtures in the big relay house at Three Wells, the brackets and the bolts and the rings round the quickeners. I sent them down the Long Road on a cart in the autumn. The cart came back empty and the purse came back empty too.

I am not angry. I am cold. Being cold makes a man write letters. Clank says I should be patient. Clank is an apprentice and does not pay for coal.

Here is my news, since you will want it for the notice board. The Deep Works hum at night. It has hummed all winter. The stone is warm now even on the higher levels, which it was not before. I have stopped taking Clank below the eighth. I will not say why. Some of the men have stopped going down at all. We still send coal up. We are miners and we send coal up.

Pay the twenty emeralds and I will not write to you again until spring.

Hesk, Copperhold
%%
Letter: Tam to Corin
Dear Corin,

I am sorry I called your boat sense poor. I was teasing, but the words sounded harsher in a letter. I hope the crew comes in before the wind turns.

Pip brought home a copy of the tutor's word lesson. It says each letter or word has a place among many. When two words are used in alike ways, their places draw near. The places are numbers in the crystal, not marks on a field. That part took me two readings.

The tutor showed the mind cards for wheat, bread, flour, and loaf. It learned that these words often belong near one another. Then she showed it cards it had not practiced. It still put flour near bread. She said that was a better test than repeating the old cards.

Pip wanted to test it with beetroot and soup. The mind put beetroot near soup, which made him laugh. Then it put soup near bread. I said that was sensible, because our kitchen serves both.

I bet Pip one honey cake that the fishing boat will come home before the next lamp lighting. He says the crew will wait for a calm sea. I hope he wins the bet and loses the cake.

Tam
%%
Letter: Sorrel to Pell, the lamp
Dear Papa,

Mama says it must be short, so I will be quick.

Last night the lamp on the hill blinked all night. Long, long, short, long. Then long, short, short. Then it stopped, and started again.

Gil says a bird sat on the glass. I do not think a bird knows the lamp code.

This morning Garran sat on the step with a book on his knee. Every blink was in it, down the page like a fence with no posts.

Garran said lamps do not blink on their own. Then he said nobody sent it. Then he said it was not a bird. He is cross about all three.

Button is well. She laid an egg in your boot. I did not put it there.

Come home soon.

Sorrel
%%
Relay house rules, Saltreach tower
Notice posted inside the door of the relay house at Saltreach:

1. Two keepers are on the tower at all times. One watches the lamps. One watches the quickeners.

2. The quickeners are kept cool. Fill the pans at dawn and at dusk. In summer, bring ice from the cellar. In winter, bring snow if there is any. If the pans are dry, call the keeper of the tower at once.

3. Do not bring a candle into this room. Not one. We lost a tower to a candle once, and the archive has the letter about it.

4. Keep the door shut. This means you, and this means the cat.

5. Anyone who brings an apprentice to ask the big mind must wait in the front room. The keeper will carry the question in. Do not shout at the crystal. It cannot hear you any better for shouting.

6. If the lamps go dark, do not guess. Write it in the log. The log is the only thing that can be read later.

7. The big mind does not know everything. It will answer what it learned. If it is asked a thing it never learned, it will still answer. Write down what it says, and write down that it may be wrong.
%%
Letter: Pell to Ree, an answer
Ree,

It should have been six. There. I said it, and I will say it at the fair.

I did tell the merchant the brown was muddy, and that was wrong. It is not muddy. It is the color of a wet stone in the mill pond, and I said so to a baker yesterday.

Here is my honest trouble. The Long Road is long this spring. The bridge past the Brown Hen washed at the edge, so the carts go slow and the wood comes late. I have been short and I have been sharp. That is my doing, not yours. Forgive me.

The emeralds are in the tin by the door. Take what is owed for the red and the rest on the cart.

I will bring the cart on Leaffall. Hold the wool for me.

Pell

P.S. The Halfway Inn has a new cook. Do not eat the pie.
%%
Letter: Oren to Ulla, the first year
Dear Ulla,

It is the first day of Blossom in the second year, and I am sitting in the third room with a cup of cider, because the cider is the only thing in the hill that has not been counted yet.

I have been looking at the book of the first year. Forty-one books when we opened the door. Three hundred and twelve by the first of Frost. Now more than four hundred, and the shelves are full to the second hall. We have had to dig a new hall. The hill has agreed to it, although it has not said so in words.

I want to write down what the first year was for, because I am afraid that when the clerks are old, they will remember only the copying, and forget why we copied.

We will keep everything we write. You know the rule. The founders cut it over the door in the first week, and the cold cracked two of the stone-cutter's chisels. I used to think it was a fine motto, and a bit grand for a library. Now I think it is an instruction. Everything. A shopping list, a spoiled page, a bad poem, a child's letter, a miner's note on the back of a ledger.

The reasons are plain. We do not know what will matter. A recipe from a baker's wife in the second year might be the only record of how her bread was made, and her bread may be the bread people eat in the tenth year.

This spring the new copper vein at Copperhold came up the Long Road in bars. I have one on the shelf in the copying room, where the clerks can touch it. Merle writes that the copper is copper, and that I should not make a fuss. I am making a fuss.

The zombie at the gate was driven down the lane, and Ink has taken her place at the top of the door, and I am told she is pleased with the view.

The roads are opening, and Pell says the relay towers are going up at each hill. Next year I want every tower to send us its log. Every message, every lamp lit, every storm. Let the Archive be the place where the whole road is written down.

Do you remember what we said on the first day, when the cart came up the hill with the seventh box, and the carter asked what we were doing with all the paper? You said we were keeping it. He said, for what. You said we would find out. We are finding out.

Your friend, Oren

P.S. The stone-cutter has asked to be paid in emeralds, and I have paid him. He says the motto was the best work he has done. He also says it is the only work in the hill that does not need the lamps lit. I did not argue with him.
%%
Letter: Hesta to Pell
Dear Pell,

I am staying at the Brown Hen until the small house by the east bridge is ready. The roof is on, but the door sticks, and the bed is still on your cart. Please do not sell it by mistake with the wool.

I left my old room in Three Wells during Apple. I thought moving would take one morning. It has taken three carts, four trips, and a quarrel with my brother over a pot. He says it is his. It has my name scratched under the handle.

At the inn I heard you speak of the reading mind. The tutor said it reads a page one letter after another. At each letter it uses earlier letters from its short window to guess what comes next. I asked how it knows which earlier letters matter. The tutor said the mind learns that from its drills. That answer seemed fair, though I still do not like the inn's thin blankets.

Please bring the bed tomorrow. Bring the pot too, if my brother has not hidden it.

Your cousin,
Hesta
%%
Letter: Wynn to the innkeeper Dara
Dear Dara,

Thank you for the room. The bed was good and the fire was warm and the soup was better than I expected. I am not saying your soup is usually bad. I am saying this soup was good. There is a difference and I wanted you to know it.

The cheese you asked about. You wanted to know why mine keeps so long. Here is the secret, and it is not much of a secret. Salt. Salt and a cool room and a cloth over it. That is all. My mother did it that way and her mother did it that way. No magic.

But the salt must go on early, before the curd sets hard. That is the trick. If you salt late it sits on the outside and the middle turns. You can taste it when it turns. It goes sharp.

You said you might keep a few rounds for the inn. I will bring six on my next cart. Four pressed and two soft. Keep them in the cellar, not by the oven. I have said this before to other people and I will say it again. Not by the oven.

How is the riddle board? I looked at it on my way out. I could not solve the one about the two doors. I thought about it all the way to the bridge and I still do not know. Tell whoever wrote it that they are clever and I am not, and I am at peace with it.

I will be back through in the autumn, before the roads get bad. Save me the corner room if you can. The one with the small window is fine. I do not need a big window. I am asleep in it.

Your friend,
Wynn
Cheesemaker
%%
Letter: Tansy to Gran, the spiders
Dear Gran,

The spiders are back in the barn. There are four big ones and a family of small ones who live in the hay. I have named the big ones. Mud, Pot and Old Bob, and the fourth one I have not named yet, because it is too fast to get a good look at.

Dad says we must not hurt them. He says spiders eat the flies, and the flies eat the cow's ears. I asked him if the cow minded the spiders. He said the cow has never had an opinion on spiders in her life.

Mum says I am not to sleep in the hay loft any more, even though it is warm and the spiders are very polite. I think she is worried about the spiders. I told her the spiders are more worried about me.

Thank you for the knitted hat. It is too big. I am going to grow into it, Mum says, and then the hat will be the right size and I will be too big. I do not understand this, but I am wearing it anyway.

Love from Tansy, at Lowmarsh, in the barn
%%
Letter: Len to Gale
Dear Gale,

Your letter about the song contest made me laugh, and I read it to the inn guests. The traveler from Kettle Ridge knew a verse about a hen that stole a beetroot. He said his aunt sang it at harvest. We tried it after supper, but nobody knew the tune.

I am sending you a small gift with the next cart. It is a wooden whistle, made from a piece of birch. It has a hole at each end and one in the middle. Your cousin says it sounds like a goose. I say it sounds like a fine whistle, when held by someone who knows how.

Do not play it during lessons. Master Pell will put it on the high shelf, and then you will need a ladder. I know you have climbed the flour bins before. Your mother told me.

Our inn is busy now. The road brings folk from both sides of the ridge. We have mended the roof and set two more beds in the back room. A keeper from Vell stopped here and asked where a relay tower would stand. He made a mark on his board and spoke with Father about the hill beyond the stream.

The bridge is stone at last. It has a low rail and a lamp post at either end. The carter crossed with three sacks of wheat and did not lead the mule by hand. Father watched from the door until the cart was out of sight.

Tell me if the whistle sounds like a goose. I will not be offended.

Your aunt,
Len
%%
Letter: Finch to Lida
Dear Lida,

I will take the ladder this afternoon. Tell the mare she may keep the rung she has chewed. I have no use for it now.

I can mend the pantry roof before supper. The rain found the old split beside the chimney. That is my fault. I saw it last Swarm and said I would return after the harbor wall job. Then I forgot.

Please save me a bowl of soup. I will bring a sound spoon this time. I have three, though I can only find two.

Finch
%%
Letter: Kester to Opal, the four dots
Dear Opal,

You asked what is in my note, and why the council is so cross. I will tell you, and I will use no word you do not use at a birth.

Draw a square. Put a dot at each corner. Say there are two lamps, left and right. The top left dot is both lamps dark. The top right is the right lamp lit. The bottom left is the left lamp lit. The bottom right is both lit.

I want a crystal to say yes when exactly one lamp is lit, and no when both are lit or neither. So yes is the top right and the bottom left. No is the other two corners.

Una's crystal can draw one straight line across the board, and say yes on one side and no on the other. Try it with a string. Any string that puts the two yes corners on one side puts a no corner there too. I tried it on forty boards. It cannot be done.

That is all my note says. I did not say crystals are useless. I said one crystal has this limit. The council heard that crystals are useless, and stopped the pay.

Your friend,
Kester
%%
Letter: Zell to the keeper of the Brown
Dear Marda,
You do not know me. I know you from Pell, who has told me about your stew, your well, and your barn full of spiders. He said if I ever needed an inn on the Long Road, I should ask for you.
I need one. Not for me. For a house.
I am a dyer at Vell, and my house is being moved. A great many are leaving Vell, and the Archive is half empty of its own clerks, and the hill is quiet at night. I do not wish to leave. But I wish to know that I could.
So my question: if I came your way with a cart, two vats, a cat and a husband, would you have room? We could pay in dyed wool, or honey, or work. I am good at stirring.
I also ask about a letter. I sent one to Pell at your inn last month. I have heard nothing. If it came, please say. If it did not, please say that too. I would like to know where my letters go.
It is winter and the road is long. I do not ask for an answer soon. But I ask for one.
Zell
%%
Chronicle: the even numbers
From the chronicle of the tutors, the years around 196.

In those years the tutors at Vell were building minds with more layers than before, and they found that a deep mind would not learn. It learned well for a while, then it stopped. The tutors drilled it and drilled it and the answer stayed wrong. Some said the crystal was cloudy. Some said the drills were bad. Some said the minds had a limit and we had reached it.

A tutor named Isla, who would later draw the rule of growth, sat with a deep mind for a season and watched its numbers. She wrote that the numbers in each layer grew with every drill, layer upon layer, until they were too big for the slate to hold. The mind was not stupid. It was drowning in its own numbers.

She tried a remedy. After each layer passed its answer up, she brought the numbers back to an even size, the size she had chosen when she built the mind. The deep mind began to learn again. It learned past the place where it had stopped. It learned past the place where the next mind stopped. The tutors wrote it in their books and every new mind was built that way after.

The texts do not agree on the year. Some put it at 195, some at 197, and one letter from Copperhold puts it at 194 and says the miners knew it first, which the tutors at Vell deny. They always deny it. The argument is old and friendly now.

What the texts do agree on: it is the even size that matters, not a small one. A layer that brings its numbers back too small forgets what it learned. A layer that brings them back too big drowns. The size is chosen when the mind is built, and a good tutor chooses it the way a smith chooses the weight of a hammer.

And the stream came the same year, or near it, and the two together are why a deep mind can still learn. Each layer adds what it found to a stream that runs through the whole mind, and each layer brings its numbers back to an even size. The stream carries what was learned. The even numbers keep the mind from drowning. A tutor who understands both can build a mind that learns a hard thing, and keeps learning it, and does not go stiff.

Nobody wrote why the numbers grow. The tutors asked. The archive has no answer. Isla wrote: we do not know why the stair leans. We know how to set our feet. That is enough to climb.

In the autumn of that year the council at Vell voted to pay for a new relay house, the first of the big ones, and the tutors said the even numbers were the reason it could be built. The council minutes are short and the writing is bad. They say: the minds can be made bigger now. Build the house.
%%
Letter: Pell to Yarrow, from the road
Dear Yarrow,

I am at the Halfway Inn. The riddle board by the hearth has a new riddle, and nobody has solved it yet, and I am going to be stuck here until somebody does. It goes: What has a roof and no walls, and is always on the road? I say it is a waymark. Nobody agrees with me.

I have your message about the roof. I am sorry I was rude about the color. A grey roof is the best roof on the Long Road. I have now said so to three carters and a dog, and they all agreed with me, and the dog looked very relieved.

I have brought the salt. I have brought the needles. I have brought Juna's letter, which is short, and I have not read it, because it is addressed to me and I am too polite to read another person's post, even when it is mine.

I owe you a bet, too. I said Ama would take the honey back, and she did not. So I owe you a jar of the dark. I shall tell Ama that I cannot pay for it, and she will say that is not my business, and then she will give you the jar herself.

The road is wet. The bridge at the stream has one rail loose again. I am telling the road keepers. I am also telling you, so that you know I am telling them.

Pell
%%
Letter: Abel to Nessa, a school asks
Dear Nessa,

I teach at the school by the east well at Three Wells. Twenty children, more in winter, when the roads are too bad to work and the parents want them out of the house.

The children ask about apprentices. They see them on the road with Pell's cart, carrying grain and crates. They ask me how a mind learns. I have read your manual and the primer, but I get it wrong in front of them, and they can tell.

I would like to bring my older class to Vell in the spring. They are nine and ten. They can be quiet. They would stand in the drill room and watch. If a tutor could say a few words to them, it would go into their heads and stay, better than anything I say.

Tell me if this is possible, and what it would cost. We can bring our own bread. I bake a fair loaf.

Abel
Teacher, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, about the fence
Kettle Ridge, winter. Tam writes back to his sister Mira at Northpoint. The letter is not tidy and neither is the fence.
Dear Mira,
Thank you for the fish and the cheese. The cheese came with a note that said "Do not give it to Pip." I gave it to Pip. He ate half of it before I knew. He says it is the best cheese he has had. I think you wrote the note to be funny.
I must tell you about the fence. Brin and I have a quarrel over it. He says it stands a block too far on his side. I say it is where our father put it, and our father was never wrong about a fence. Brin says our father was never right either. So we are at war.
It began at the harvest and has lasted all winter. We do not speak. We nod. Biscuit, his dog, is the only one who crosses, and I think he does it to spite us both.
Pip has a plan. He says he will move the fence a half-block at night, a little each time, so neither of us notices. I said no. He said it would be fair. I said it would be a crime. He said, "Only if we are caught."
I wrote to Dace at Three Wells for a ruling. I have not had an answer. Dace is probably busy with the market.
How is the fox? Tell Sir I said hello.
Tam
%%
Letter: Teague to Mave, the late cart
Dear Mave,

I am sitting on a crate at the foot of the Copperhold road. Eleven more crates are sitting around me. The cart is not here.

The carter said the second of Apple. Today is the fifth. You said you would send word if anything changed. No word came. I think the word was lost, and the carter was lost, and I am a little lost myself.

A shepherd walked by and asked if I was a monument. I said I was a glassblower. He said, near enough.

The house at the edge of town looks fine from here. I will tell you more when I am inside it.

Tell the cat I will send for her.

Your brother,
Teague
%%
Letter: Noll to Bet, about the chicken
Bet,

The chicken has left the yard. I am not sure how. The gate was shut and the hen house door was shut and the fence along the lane has no gaps that a chicken could fit through, unless the chicken is very determined. It is very determined.

The children found it on the wall of the school house at dawn. It was sitting on top of the wall, just under the painted door, looking down on the children as if it were the mayor. The children made a great noise. The chicken did not care. Mayor Dace came out in his coat and nightcap and asked the chicken to get down. The chicken did not get down. The chicken stayed on the wall until the teacher brought a basket of seed, and then it came down the wall one step at a time, like a little old man, and went straight into the basket.

Dace has asked that the chicken be kept off the school wall in future. I have said I will try. The chicken has its own ideas about the school wall, and I think the school wall will have to win.

The first snow has come and gone and come again. The lamp on the corner is always lit now. I counted the lamps from the bed last night, all the way to the bell, and I got to eleven before the snow hid them. You would like the snow. It makes the square look clean for an hour.

Noll
%%
Letter: Noll to Bet, the move
Dear Bet,

We are in. The cart came up the Three Wells road at dawn with the cupboard tied on the back, and the cupboard stayed tied all the way, which is more than I can say for the chicken. The chicken is in the yard now. It has taken the best corner by the well and it will not give it back.

The house is smaller than the old one, but it has a proper hearth, and a window that looks east down the hill to the square at Three Wells. I can see the bell tower from the bed. I can see the lamp on the corner, which is lit already, though it is only the middle of the afternoon. Dace says the lamps are lit early on the shortest days so that nobody walks into the well. He is right about that. I have already walked into the well's edge once, and it was only the edge.

The inn is the same. I will not have time to be lonely here, because there are twelve beds and eleven of them are full. The twelfth is the one by the stove, and Pell has it every time he comes through, and his boots are on the rail again.

I have had the cellar cleaned out, all of it. Forty-one jars came up, and nine of them I did not want. Some were pickled beetroot from before the old roof leaked, and the rest I cannot name. I gave the nine to Tam's boy for the hens, and the hens seem happy about it.

Your sister says she will come at Blossom to see the house. I told her the house will still be here at Blossom, which is more than the roof was.

Write when the post comes through. Write what the children are doing. Tell me whether the school has a new teacher, and whether the bell still sticks on the third stroke.

Noll
The inn at Three Wells, the house on the east road
%%
Letter: Tomas to Merle
Dear Merle,

Thank you for the waymark. We found our way back by it, just as you said. My wife says you set it too true and now the whole marsh knows where we were married, and she is only half joking.

The harvest this year was poor. The beetroot rotted and the potatoes came up small. We are eating thin soup and telling the children it is thick. Wren says next year will be better. I am not sure, but I do not say so to the children.

Come to the wedding ground next Blossom. We will have a fire and a pot and a good jar of honey.

Your friend,
Tomas
%%
Letter: Greer to Maud, boats gone
Dear Maud,

You asked me about the boats. Here is what I know, which is less than what the boatmen say, and more than what the mayor says.

The big ships have been seen off Saltreach three times this autumn. They are longer than any boat. Corin is not talking about them, which means he is worried. The yard is building more hulls than the fishers can use.

Some families from the harbor have packed their carts and gone along the coast road. They do not say where. They say the sea will be kinder past the headland. Others say they are only going to cousins, and will be back for the cod season. The fish market has fewer sellers now. The price of salt went up on the board, and the price of everything else went down.

I do not know what is across the water. Nobody I trust knows either. So I buy what I can carry, I sell what I can spare, and I keep the cart by the door.

Greer
%%
Letter: Sable to Jeb, the late boat
Dear Jeb,

Your boat is not home. Dun and Harl went out at noon, and they have not come back over the water. The lantern is lit on the jetty. Do not row out after them in the dark. They will be cold and wet, and so will you.

A zombie knocked at the gate last night, very politely. I did not open it. I put a loaf on the wall instead, and it took the loaf and went off across the field. The torches on the path kept the rest back.

Bring the flour up on the wagon. The second stone is cracked.

Your sister,
Sable

P.S. Harl's boat came in at dawn. Dun was singing. He always sings when he has not caught anything.
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, one or the other
Dear Mira,

Ivo came over the ridge last week with his cart and his bad knee. You remember Ivo, who drilled the field minds at Vell. The council stopped paying the tutors this year.

Over supper he told us Kester's note. I am writing it down so you will stop asking me.

Lay four stones in a square, one on each corner. Each corner is one case: neither, only the first, only the second, or both. Two cases are yes: one or the other, but not both. Those two sit on opposite corners.

Now draw one straight line across the ground, with both yes stones on one side and both no stones on the other. You cannot. Every line leaves a yes stone on the wrong side.

Kester said one crystal of that kind can never learn this. One crystal can only draw one line. Ivo says two crystals, one feeding the other, could draw two. Nobody has tried it. The council will not pay for trying.

Crumb is one crystal of the old kind. It only has to sort eggs, and it does that well.

Tam
%%
Letter: Bree to Ivo, apples and spiders
Dear Ivo,

Your letter came up the Long Road with a cart of salt and a cheese the size of a small hen. The cheese is from Greer at Kettle Ridge. It has a crack in the middle, which she says is intended. I have eaten a third of it, and I am not convinced.

The orchard is coming into bloom, late, after the long winter. The old tree with the grey branch has one white flower on it. Everyone has walked up to look, the way you do when something has decided to try again. Jory says the tree will fruit if it gets the rain at the right time. He says that about everything, but he is usually right about trees.

Our spiders have gone into the press house, where they say the cider is sweeter. You warned me about your spiders, and it turns out ours have heard about yours. They sent a delegation of two. They were very polite, and they stood on the press until I moved it.

The bees came out of their hives on the first warm day. Ama says they are cross about the winter, and so am I. They sat on the lid of the honey jar and looked at me until I gave them a dish of water, which Ama says is the same thing as an apology.

The bridge over the stream has its plank back, the loose one. Jory put it in again, and it still moves, but it is the good kind of moving. The children like to jump on it. Their mothers do not like them to jump on it. I say the plank has been jumped on since before any of us were born, and it has never once given way.

Dorrit says the stew at the mine gate was the best of the winter. I told her that was only because she was there to eat it, and she threw a spoon at me. It was a wooden spoon, and it missed.

We have a wedding in the orchard next month, if the blossom holds. Ysa and Rafe, who have been courting in my apple cart since Thaw. The whole town is coming, and the cider is spoken for. Save me six barrels, Ivo, and do not tell me you have only four. I know what your cellar holds.

Write back. Tell me what Hesk says about the stone, and whether Clank has learned to stop at the bell. Tell me also whether the spiders have finished the barn, because I need to know what to expect when I visit.

With love from the orchard,
Bree

P.S. The tree with the grey branch is looking better. I am taking that as a sign, and you may think what you like.
%%
Letter: Bel to Oren
Dear Oren,

Can a cat come to a wedding? Ours will not stay out. Her name is Pipkin and she is grey with one white foot. Mother says she will spoil the cake. I say she will not, because she only sits.

The wedding is at the east well in Sowing. I am to carry the ring on a little cushion. I have been practicing walking slow. Pipkin follows me when I practice, so it is good practice for her too.

Dace says you are coming. If you come, will you bring a book? I want to see the seal. I have seen it once, on a letter to the school, and it looked like a hill with a door in it.

Yours,
Bel

P.S. If you say no about the cat, I will have to shut her in the shed, and she will cry. So please think about it.
%%
Letter: Dace to Pell, the fair stalls
To Pell of Ambrook, merchant, from Dace, mayor of Three Wells, about the fair.

Pell,

I write because the market council asked me to, and because I did not want to have this argument on the road, where you would win it.

The stall fee for the spring fair is four emeralds for a cart, and six for a cart with honey on it. You have been paying four. The honey does not care what the council wants, and neither does the stall beside the well, which is yours this year and will be yours next year if you pay the six.

I know you think the honey is special. I know the dark honey from Ambrook sells before the light honey is opened. I know that the children of Three Wells would eat the jar in a morning if they could. That is the reason for the six. The children are happy when the honey is in the square, and the council is happy when the children are happy, and nobody is happy when a merchant argues with a mayor on a market morning.

Please pay the six. In exchange you may have the stall nearest the notice board, where everyone reads the rules before they buy. I have already had the board painted with your name, in very small letters, so you cannot object to the size.

The council has also asked me to say that the children of Three Wells have made a song about the honey. I have heard it. It is not a good song, but it has three verses and a refrain about jars, and I have been humming it in the square all week, and so has the bell. I will not write the rest, because the council would have to pay for it.

The cart stands on the north side of the square, and it will stand there until the first market day of Melon. Please bring the cart early, before the children are up. I know the children will be up very early, because they have been up very early all week, and you will have to pay them in honey to make them go to bed.

Also, the riddle board at the Halfway Inn has been moved to Three Wells. Hobb says you are the reason. I have not decided whether to thank you.

Dace, mayor, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Ruth to Pen, after the flood
Dear Pen,

Thank you for the eggs and the shoes. The shoes are too big. I will grow into them, which is what everyone says about shoes.

Now the news. Last week the rain came down like a bucket tipped over. The stream came off the hills in a brown rush, over its banks and down the lane, knee deep. It did not stop at the doors.

Hook was out at the nets. It is the copper helper that Corin sets to the nets, and it has done one thing for six years. When the water came up, it went into the stream to its waist.

It carried the Haddon girls up onto the wall, one at a time, the smallest first. Then old Mother Jessop, who weighs more than a sack of salt. It did not run. It walked, slowly, one foot after another, the way it was shown at the slip.

When the last child was up, Hook stood in the brown water and looked at the wall. Nobody had shown it what comes after a flood. So it stood there until Corin came back with the rope, and then it did what it was told.

The water took the net shed, the hen house, two small boats on the hard, and Jessop's pig. The pig came back two days later, sitting very proud on a floating door. Nobody has got it off yet.

Corin says Hook will be mended on the slip and sent back to the nets. I said a good helper stood in the water with children on the wall and could not decide what to do. Corin said that is what happens when no one has told it. I said then someone should. He said that is what the tutors are for. Then he remembered they are not paid any more, and he went very quiet, and made the tea.

Come at Longday if the lane is dry. Bring your own boots. Shoes are for growing into, not for walking through floods.

Ruth
%%
Letter: Nessa to the Lowmarsh school
Dear teacher at Lowmarsh,

We are sending you a small apprentice for the summer, one of the copper ones, a young mind out of our drill room. She is called Tally. She is good with rows and counting and she does not tire. She will help with your garden and your stores. She is not good at much else yet.

You must give her orders in the words she knows. This is the whole of what she knows: farm, store, fetch, come, stay, build, haul, home. She cannot say she does not know. She will do something. It may not be the thing you meant.

Last week I told her to fetch the watering can. She brought me a hen. She was very pleased. The hen was less pleased. I have written the order for a watering can on a card now, and she carries the card. If you want a can, show her the card.

Write if she gives trouble. She will not. She only misunderstands.

Nessa
The tutor house, Vell
%%
Letter: Ruel to Mab, Isla's curve
Dear Mama,
Isla came to the drill room today and drew a line on the board. It went up and then bent over, like a fox's tail. She said it is a curve. She said that before we grow a mind, we can draw how well it will do.
Here is how it works, as far as I can tell. A bigger crystal holds more weights, and more weights can learn more. But only if you drill it longer, and only if the drills hold more writing. Short drills make small minds. Long drills on a big crystal make a good one. Isla drew three lines for three sizes, and each one went up and then bent. She said the bend is where more drilling stops paying.
That is most of it. Do not worry that I do not understand all of it. Nessa says I will.
The fox got into the hen house again. Tell Father it was not my fault. I was at Vell.
Your son,
Ruel
%%
Letter: Gale to Len
Dear Aunt Len,

The whistle came with the new books. I tried it behind the school room, where Master Pell could not hear. It sounds like a goose when I blow hard, and like a kettle when I blow softly. I have decided both sounds are useful.

The new road is firm below the stone yard. A cart passed from Three Wells with nails, glass and two barrels of apples. The carter said he had slept at the Brown Hen. He was glad to find our inn open, though he called it the Copper Hill House. Father says we should make a sign so travelers know its name.

There is talk of a relay tower on the hill beyond the stream. A keeper came with two masons and a measure rope. They paced the ground, then put a stone where the door will stand. The tower will carry messages toward Vell and Three Wells. The keeper says the first tower will be small. I asked if small towers have small messages. He said no, and smiled.

The school room has a new shelf for books. Bera made the shelf from spare boards. She has given me the lower space, since I am short. I put the slate there each night and keep the birch whistle beside it.

We made a song for the road workers. It has three lines, because Master Pell says a short song is easier to carry.

The road is firm beneath our feet.
The cart brings bread and news.
The lamp will find us in the dark.

Bera says the last line is too grand for a muddy hill. I say the hill will be grand when the tower stands on it.

Father has begun keeping a little room by the house for travelers who come late. He says they may sleep there if the inn is full. Mother says we need another blanket first. I asked the keeper if the tower house will have a spare blanket. He said it will have a desk, a lamp and a stool. I think a blanket would be better.

I will send you a drawing of the tower when the stones rise above the hill. I can draw a straight wall now, though the roof still leans.

Your loving niece,
Gale
%%
Letter: the Archive to Lowmarsh
To the weaver and the millers at Lowmarsh, from the clerks of the Archive at Vell, in answer to your letter of the spring.

We have your letter about the wheel. We are sorry the wheel is down. The Archive keeps a book of mill wheels, in the third room, and we have looked it up for you.

Every wheel in the book is written with its wood and its size. The oldest on the coast is at Saltreach, and it is birch, and it has lasted fifty years, which is good for birch. The wheel at Lowmarsh is in the book as oak, cut in the 118th year, and it is marked with the boat-house sign, which means it was made by Corin's father.

We have written down the day it fell, and the names of the men who lifted it. The clerks have added them to the book, under the wheel, so the next millers will know who to thank.

For the new wheel, the book says to use the oak from the ridge, with the grain running long. The book says to set the axle in the stone and not in the wood. The book says the frogs will be a difficulty. It does not say how to deal with them. We think you have found the answer already.

We thank you for the letter. Please keep the book of your mill in your own house, with a copy of this one. We keep everything, and it is good to have a second place where the things are kept.

Oren, for the clerks of the Archive
%%
Letter: Fen to Rowan, the lost letter
Rowan,

Did you get my letter? I sent it to the Brown Hen and they said you had gone on to Copperhold. I wrote about the apples. The blossom came early this year and the bees were out before the hives were ready, which Jory says is the bees' business and none of ours.

I also wrote that Mother is well, and that the loose plank on the bridge has been mended. It has. A traveler put a new one in and would not take pay, only bread.

If you did not get it, that is all right. I am writing it all again now, which is cheaper than worrying. The market at Ambrook is on the first of Swarm. Come if you can. Bring honey if you have it and do not bring any more of those blue beads, the children trade them for everything and the schoolteacher has banned them.

Your sister,
Fen
%%
Letter: Lyle to Sella
Dear Sella,

The first snow came before I had covered the cheese pots. I have moved them into the back room. The room is cold enough, though the door sticks when the wood swells.

The cow is sick. She will not eat her hay, and her nose is warm. I sent word to Wren at Lowmarsh. She said to keep her dry and give her clean water. I have done both. She also said not to let Clank try to carry her. I had not asked Clank, but now he is offended.

The mine kitchen sent back the small cheese. Hesk says it was too sharp. He says this every winter, then eats it all. I will send him a softer one next time, if he sends the empty dish back.

Please bring the blue blanket from the house when you come. The cow needs it more than I do.

Your brother,
Lyle
%%
Letter: Corin to Tam
Dear Tam,

I meant the beetroot. Pell called it apples because he had apples on his cart too. He has now promised to sort his sacks by what is inside them. I will believe that when I see it.

At the shipyard, we tested a small mind on words. Nessa gave it cards for bread, flour, wheat, and rope. Each word had a place among many places in the mind. Words used alike sat close together. The mind put wheat near bread, and flour near bread too. It put rope far away.

This was only a simple drill. We do not know why the crystal learns from the cards. The tutors say the closeness is useful, not a little picture hidden inside the crystal.

The sea has kept one fishing boat out since last evening. The crew know the coast well. We have left a lamp burning on the pier.

Corin
%%
Letter: Nessa to Pell
Dear Pell,

You asked what the tutors mean by a window. It is not glass. It is the part of the page the mind can use while it guesses the next letter.

The mind reads a letter at a time. For each new letter, it looks back at the letters before it that matter. The window holds about sixty letters. Then it guesses what comes next. If the guess is wrong, the tutors can show it the right letter and drill it again.

This does not mean it understands a page as we do. It learns from many pages, and it grows better at guessing what letters belong together. The big minds at the relay houses read this way.

I have written this plainly for the farm school. Please tell me if the children understand it. A clear answer from them is worth more than praise from another tutor.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Neri to Mab, two boards

Dear Mab,

You may take the boards. They are by the south wall of my shed. One is longer than the other, but Jory can cut it to fit.

I heard the wheel break from my garden. My cat ran under the bench and stayed there until I brought out fish. She has forgiven the wheel. She has not forgiven me for being late with supper.

I can come to the mill after lessons and help with the boards. Please bring the little saw from the school store. Mine has a loose handle, and I do not trust it near Jory's fingers.

You can repay me with the school children singing by the pond. They know the apple song, I hope.

Neri
%%
Letter: Nessa to Vesper
Vesper,
You are not wrong. You are nearly exactly right. I may use your broth when I teach the new class.
Let me say it as I say it to my apprentices, and then you can see how close you came.
A mind is built in layers. Each layer takes the numbers coming in, works on them, and hands new numbers to the next. The numbers are not words. They are only quantities. A mind written in numbers has nothing else to hold.
Here is what goes wrong. If each layer scales the numbers up a little, even a very little, then after twelve layers they are twelve times too big. After thirty, they are huge. The mind cannot learn from them. They are wild. If each layer scales them down, they shrink toward nothing and the mind learns nothing either.
The cure is simple. Before a layer passes its numbers on, we look at them as a whole and bring them to an even size. We subtract the middle, and we divide by how far they spread. Then the next layer receives numbers that are the right size, whatever the layer before did.
A mind with these steps learns faster, and a deeper mind is possible. The tutors found this about the year 196. It is one of the quiet things that made the big minds possible.
Your pot of broth is better than the drawing I use on the board. I will tell my class where I got it.
Your spiders sound brave. I would also keep the goat away from the webs. Webs stick.
Nessa
%%
Letter: Wren to Nessa
Dear Nessa,

The frost came early to Lowmarsh. The boardwalk was slick, and Moss carried the salt jar without spilling it. I call that a fine winter morning.

Thank you for the dry wool. I have put it by the sick beds. The frogs are quiet, but one keeps appearing beside the well. I suspect it wants the warm water.

Wren
%%
Letter: Ree to Bel
Dear Bel,

Thank you for your letter about the play. I read it twice. I am glad the frogs won. I always thought the frogs would win.

You asked how I make the blue cloth for the well. Here is how, and you may tell the other children.

First I take the wool and wash it in the trough until the water runs clear. Then I put it in the big pot with water and a little of the ash water I keep in a jar. I heat it slow. Then I put in the blue, which comes in a hard lump from the market. It is the color of a deep stone. I stir it with a long stick I keep for nothing else. I stir it until my arm hurts. Then I stir it more. Then I hang it on the line to dry, and it drips blue on the grass, and the grass comes back green in a week.

The cloth for your well was the best blue I have made. That is why it was heavy. The wool was thick and the dye went all the way through, and thick cloth holds water and does not want to stay on a barrel. Next year I will make it thinner, and I will sew stones in the corners so it stays.

Tell Mistress Ada I heard about the relay tower play. If she needs a lamp, I have an old lamp of tin that hangs in the dye shed. It is not a relay lamp, but it is a lamp, and it holds a light, and the frogs could carry it.

You may carry it yourself if she says yes.

Tell me how the bee is getting on. I hear the bee forgot to buzz. I once forgot my own name at a fair, so I say nothing against the bee.

Your friend,
Ree

P.S. The lamb is called Blue, after your elbows.
%%
Letter: the inn to the Archive, spring
To the clerks of the Archive at Vell, from the Halfway Inn on the Long Road, in the spring of the fifteenth year of the archive.

We are asked each year to send a count of what the road has, and what it has gained. The count is below, with the things that cannot be counted left in, for the honest clerks to file as they see fit.

Roads. The Long Road is stone from Vell to the first bridge, and stone again from the ford to the inn. The packed earth between the two is a long stretch of mud in the thaw, and the carters say it is the best mud on the road. Waymarks: thirty-four between Vell and the crossing, each with a figure and an arrow. Two were pushed over by a cart in Thaw, and both have been set up again by the stonecutters, who argued about the second one for three days.

Inns. The Halfway Inn has twelve beds, fourteen chairs, one hearth that has not been out for nineteen years, and a jar of honey on the shelf by the door, kept for the winter. The Brown Hen is a day east, and keeps the best cider on the road. The farm inn at the ford is kept by a widow and her eight sons, who make the best pies, and charge for the crust separately. The new inn at the old crossing has no name yet. The carters call it the Cross. The innkeeper says that is not a name. The carters say it will do.

Towers. The relay on the hill above the inn was lit on the first morning of Thaw. Its keeper is Sedge, who has never once been seen without a quill behind his ear. The next tower is at the crossroads, and is half built. Between the two, the lamp is seen from the road each dusk, and the carters have started to slow down to watch it. Nobody has said this is a problem. Several have said it is a pleasure.

People. The inn has had two births, one wedding, and no deaths this spring. The widow's eight sons are all married or nearly married, and the widow says she will not feed any more of them after the next one. The apprentice that came from Vell last autumn walks the road to the first waymark every morning and back by dusk, counting the stones. It stops at each waymark and waits, as it was taught. Nessa says it is only the drill. The carters say it is a friend, and they have started leaving it bread.

Things we cannot count. The lamp on the hill, and the way the carters slow down to see it. The good morning that goes up the line before breakfast, and the answers that come back from the towers. The laugh of the cook when the new oven works. The quiet by the hearth at night, when the road is empty and the stones are cold and the carts have all gone home, and the inn is full of people who have chosen to stay.

We have counted what we can. The rest we leave for the clerks, who have always been better at counting than we are.

Hobb, innkeeper, and Hazel, net mender, for the Halfway Inn.
%%
Letter: Pell to Juna, Daisy is born
Dear Juna,

A girl was born at Ferris and Elsa's house this morning. I was in the yard with the barrels, so I heard first. Ferris came out with flour on his face. He does not bake. He does not know how it got there. He said, "It's a girl," and sat down on a barrel. It was a barrel he had not finished. He went through the top.

She is called Daisy, for the flower by the gate. She has black hair and a voice that carries to the well. Elsa is tired and well and very pleased.

The mayor has sent two spoons, as the town does. I gave a jar of honey. Tell Tilly she has a friend at Three Wells now.

Your Pell
%%
Letter: Moss to Wren
Dear Wren,

I am sorry about the jar. I did not break it. I set it on the high shelf, as you asked, but the shelf was wet. The jar slid down by itself and landed in the wash tub.

I have dried the labels. The one for cough syrup is still readable. The one for nettle tea now says "warm mud". I will make a new label after I sweep the shed.

Please do not tell Nella that the wash tub is cracked. I have put it under the bench. It holds water if nobody looks at it.

Moss
%%
Letter: Oren to Ulla, the ink
Dear Ulla,

I am at the Vell market, at the ink stall. The ink seller has black, blue, brown, and a green that I did not know existed. He says the green is for titles. I said we use black for titles. He looked at me as if I had said we use mud.

I have bought six bottles of black. I have not bought the green. If the green is wanted, you may come and buy it yourself, and see his face.

Back before the bell.

Oren
%%
Letter: Sable to Corin, a request
Dear Corin,

I am writing from the house at the edge of Saltreach. The salt wind has come around the harbor wall and got into my candle room again. It made a crust on the brass pot. I scrubbed it with sand, and now the pot shines on one side and looks tired on the other.

Could you spare a flat piece of glass for the window? The old pane has a crack from the top to the latch. It does not fall out, but each time the wind blows it gives a little tick. The cat has begun to answer it. I would rather listen to the wind.

I can pay in candles or emeralds. I have three good beeswax candles, and a box of tallow ones for work sheds. If you want candles, tell me how many and what size. I will not guess again. Last time I made the tapers too long, and your men had to cut them down with a knife.

My cousin Lio says your boat came late from the outer nets. I hope the crew had a calm return. He was waiting by the pier with a lantern and a basket. He came home with the basket still empty, but he says the crew had enough fish to share.

Please send word when the glass is ready. I can carry it to the yard myself if the road is dry. I will bring a cloth so the corners do not chip.

Your neighbor,
Sable
%%
Letter: Tam to Gale
Dear Gale,

Pip brought your note from Pell's cart. It had mud on one corner, but the words stayed clear.

I think you and Pell are both right. A small mind does not know when it is unsure. It gives one of the meanings it has learned. It may fetch, stay, farm, store, come, build, haul, or go home. If the order is strange, it still chooses.

The big mind at our relay house can write back to a person. Pip cannot. Nessa told us that small minds have a narrow set of answers, even when the order has many words.

I asked Pip to bring my redstone lamp and stay by the barn door. It brought the lamp and waited there. I tried the same sentence with "blue lamp," though we have no blue lamp. Pip came back with the redstone lamp again. So I do not ask it questions that it cannot answer.

Mira says the relay lamps carry the big mind's words, but she does not know how the words travel so far. She says the keeper's work is to keep the lamps lit, not guess at every mystery.

Pip sends no letter, of course. It carried this one to the road and came back with an empty basket. That is answer enough for today.

Tam
%%
Notice: the school's market stall
From Teacher Sorrel, for the parents of Ambrook.

The children of the school will have a stall at the market on the first of Swarm. They will sell what they have grown and made: honey from our two hives, carrots, and small clay pots painted with flowers.

The children have voted that all money goes to mending the school roof. I have voted the same. The roof leaks on the counting shelf.

Bel of Three Wells has written to ask what we sell and I have told her. She asks a great many questions. She wants a fox. We do not sell foxes.

Please bring your child to the mill at first light to help set up. Please bring a cloth for the table. We have enough cloth now. Do not bring more cloth.

One more thing. There will be an apprentice at our stall, to help carry. It is a young one and it is still learning. If it brings you something you did not ask for, please be patient and ask again plainly. It is doing its best.
%%
Notice: lost ewe, Kettle Ridge
Lost on the ridge road, in the last days of Thaw, one ewe.

She is grey about the face. Her left ear is torn. She has a bell that does not ring, because the clapper is gone. She is old and she is slow and she is not afraid of people. She will come to beet tops and she will come to anyone who says her name in a low voice, but only if they have the tops.

She went up the north road. A drover saw her past the waymark with the figure 4 on it, walking as if she knew where she was going.

Whoever finds her: she is not mine to keep, but I would be glad to have her home. Leave word at the Kettle Inn on the ridge road. The innkeeper will send for me. There will be something for your trouble.

There is a tower on the hill between here and Vell and the keeper there blinks messages down the line. The keepers are looking too. If you see her, tell a keeper and they will pass it along the road faster than a cart can go.

Do not chase her. She will only go further. Sit down and wait and she will come to the tops.

Tam, of the lower fields at Kettle Ridge
%%
Letter: Mara to Cass
Dear Cass,

I am sending the rope with Pip. It is coiled in the basket by the back door. Do not let Tam use it to tie the scarecrow. He used my good cord last year, and the scarecrow wore it like a sash until Longnight.

The brown horse is welcome to rest by the barn door. He has earned it. He pulled my cart from the lower field when the wheel sank in the mud. I gave him an apple, and he took the basket too. He has a broad idea of thanks.

I will come after the beetroot is lifted. Please keep a little hay dry for my mare. The roof over my stack leaks near the east post. I put a pot under it, but now the pot is full of rain and the hay is wet.

Could you look at the post when you have time? I will bring a hammer and two boards. You can bring your good rope, if Tam has not borrowed it.

Mara
%%
Letter: Oren to Nessa, the stuck cart
Dear Nessa,

Yesterday the crew's cart stuck in the mud at the bottom of Marta's lane, loaded with beams. I watched from the gate with my hands behind my back, as you taught me, because I wanted to see what they would do.

Two pushed. Nothing. One dug round the wheel. Nothing. Then Cog walked up the lane to the post on the barn roof, the little relay post, and the lamp on it blinked. After a time a board by the post showed a few words. Marta read them out to me: LAY PLANKS CROSSWISE UNDER THE WHEEL.

They laid planks. The cart rolled. It took the better part of an hour.

Was this in your drills? I think not. I think they were drilled on asking, and they asked.

Oren
%%
Letter: Ada to Finch
Dear Finch,

I have paid the three emeralds I owed you for the roof over the fish shed. They are in the small clay pot under your window. I counted them twice. The first time I counted two, because one had rolled under the sill.

You were right about the loose boards. The wind lifted one while I was hanging nets. It landed in my basket and caught three fish. I am keeping the fish, but not the board.

I hope you will come by the house at the edge of Saltreach before the next rain. The west gutter is full of leaves. If you clear it, I will give you a jar of honey from my sister's hives. Do not say the jar is too small. It is the only one with a lid that fits.

Ada
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, the prize
Dear Tam,
You wrote to tell me that you lost the beetroot prize at the Three Wells fair. You wrote it three times, in three different colors of ink, so I would be sure to see it. I saw it.
I am sorry. I know how much it meant. I know you grew that beetroot all summer, and measured it every evening, and sang to it, which I am told you do. It was a good beetroot. It was not the best beetroot. Brin's was larger. That is no shame.
Here is what I think. A prize is a thing you win, and a beetroot is a thing you eat. You can eat the beetroot. You cannot eat the prize. So you did not lose very much.
Here is something else, which you will not like. You have written to me eleven times since spring. In nine of those letters you asked if I was lonely. I am not lonely. I have a lamp, an apprentice, a fox, and a brother who writes too much. I am the least lonely person in the north.
Come to Northpoint in Deepsnow. Bring the beetroot. I will cook it. We will eat it with rabbit and talk about how much better yours was.
Your sister,
Mira
%%
Letter: Nessa to Lyle
Dear Lyle,

Your question is a good one. The first layer does not need to see the last answer while it is being made.

A layered mind passes a finding from one layer to the next. The last layer gives the answer. When the answer is wrong, the tutor sends a share of the blame back through the layers. Each layer changes its weights a little, according to the share it receives.

Think of a row of cheese cloths. Each cloth changes the curds in its own small way. If the final cheese is too sharp, we do not blame only the last cloth. We look back through the row and change the work at each step. That example is not exact, but it may help.

The stream is the part that lets each layer add what it found to what came before. The stream runs through the whole mind. A deep layer can still learn, because its finding joins the stream rather than pushing all earlier findings away. The mind still needs many examples, and it can still learn badly from poor drills.

I will give the cheese to the apprentices. I will also ask Clank to clean beneath the bench. He says he cannot smell the rind. This is not the same as saying it is not there.

The cow's news is welcome. Give her small amounts of clean hay and water. Wren knows more than I do about cows.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Piper to Oren, the market list
Dear Oren,

You said a clerk should write down everything he sees. I am not a clerk but I am practising. Here is everything I saw at the market at Vell on the day of the fair, in order, so you can file it.

1. The gate opened at first light. Ro the gate keeper let in the Ambrook carts first because they had come furthest. There were six carts. The yellow apples were in the third cart under a cloth.

2. The stallholders put up their awnings. The awning of the wool stall goes up crooked every time and the wool man says it is the wind and everyone says it is him.

3. A chicken got loose from the hen stall. It ran past the well and the notice board and into the archive door and a clerk who was not you carried it out again. The chicken was not sorry.

4. A woman sold beetroot and shouted at the young apprentice to carry her crates. It did not know what to do. The old apprentice did it and then the young one did it too. Nessa wrote something in her book. I think she was pleased.

5. Pell the merchant paid me two emeralds for a pie I sold her in Sowing. She said it was for the pie and six months of waiting. I have put one emerald in my pocket and one in the tin under my bed. I am saving for a lamp of my own. Do not tell my mother.

6. There was a zombie at the gate in the evening. Ro shouted at it and it went away. This is true. Ask anyone.

7. The bell rang for the end of the market. The carts went out. The cloths came down. The wool man's awning fell down by itself and everyone clapped.

That is everything I saw. Is it a good list? Should I have written the weather? It was cold and then it was sunny and then it was cold again. I will write the weather next time.

Your friend,
Piper

P.S. I looked at the big book by the door. I did not touch it. I only looked. It is very big.
%%
Market notice: the Copperhold autumn
By order of the mine hall and the town, the autumn fair will be held in the square by the shaft head on the tenth of Leaffall.

Stalls open at first light. The pie stall and the honey cake stall are by the well. The fiddler plays from noon. The cheese cart from the low farms will be at the north corner.

The sorting shed will be open to visitors. The forge will show its work at two. The apprentices will carry goods from the carts to the stalls, and they will do it well, so give them room.

The count board will be wiped clean for the day. No one counts ore at the fair.

Miners coming up for the fair: write your name off the board as you come up, the same as always. The board does not take a holiday.

Dace, mayor of Three Wells, sends his greetings and cannot come. He is mending his wall.
%%
Notes: fewer marks, for the tutors
Summer, 200

Tutors all. Read this before the contests.

A mind's weights are numbers. Written plainly, each one takes many marks. A crystal has only so much room. So we write the weights in fewer marks: we round them, and we let many small weights become zero. The mind fits in a smaller crystal. It costs a little.

The cost is small and real. A mind written this way loses a little sharpness. It is wrong a little more often. Grew it long on good pages, and the loss is small. Grew it short, and the loss is not small.

What we do not know: which weights can lose their marks without harm, and which cannot. We guess. Some tutors throw away only the weights near zero. Some throw away weights in a pattern. The contests will tell us who is right. Test on pages no mind was drilled on, or the numbers mean nothing.

Do not sell a small crystal as a big one. A parent will pay for a mind that fits a pocket and finds it cannot read. We will be blamed, and rightly.

Nessa

P.S. Bring your own pages to the contest. The archive's test box stays sealed.
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the broken lamp
Dear Mira,

You will not believe where I am writing this. I am sitting on the walk round the lamp room at the top of the Saltreach tower, with my back to the glass and my legs over the sea. Ilse the keeper says this is not allowed. She is down the stair fetching more rope. I am writing fast.

I will tell it in order, as you like.

The morning after the storm I walked into Saltreach. The tower stands above the harbor wall, tall and grey, with torches round the foot. Ilse met me at the door. She is small and has a big voice. She looked at my boots, my hat and my one sock, and said, "Can you carry?" I said I can carry a calf. She said, "Good. Carry that."

That was a pane of glass, thick as my thumb. The storm had blown one pane out of the lamp room, and the rain got in. It wet the redstone line that runs down to the keeper's desk, so the lamp would not answer. And the copper ring was bent where the pane hit it. The tower was dark. No message could go up or down the coast.

I carried the glass up the stair. A hundred and twelve steps, a lamp at every turn. I counted, because I knew you would ask. At the top the wind took my hat.

The rest was waiting. Ilse bent the ring back with a wooden mallet, very gently, like a woman calming a horse. I held the ladder. We set the pane in with wax and waited for the wax to set. We dried the line with a cloth, a hand's width at a time. It took all day.

At dusk Ilse sat at the desk and moved the lever. Up in the lamp room, the lamp lit. Then it blinked twice, and a little later, far up the coast, another lamp blinked back. Ilse let out a breath. She says she had not breathed since the storm.

Then she let me send a message, because I held the ladder. Family messages are free if they are short. I wrote it myself. I will tell you what it said, so you can watch for it: Tam is well. The sea is big.

If Northpoint got that on the evening of the ninth of Blossom, it was me. Tell me how late it came. Ilse says it goes tower to tower all the way north and arrives by midnight. I think she is teasing.

I have seen the whole coast from up here. The boats look like nutshells. Sandhook is nine seeds in a row. I saw the Patient going out with Fen standing in the front. I waved. He cannot have seen, but I waved.

Tomorrow I load the kelp and go home. Pip will be proud of me. Or Pip will not know I was gone.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Sage to Dov, the long winter
Dear Dov,
The snow is on the Long Road now. The carts are slow, and the travelers are few, and the inn is very quiet in the evenings. Hobb has let the hearth burn low, to save the wood, and the whole hall smells of wet wool and turnips and the cat.
The mind at the relay house at Ambrook has been very busy this winter. The keeper says it has been answering questions from every town on the line. They ask it about the snow, the price of barley, the children's coughs, and the shape of the frost on the window. It writes back in its plain way, and it says, sometimes, that it does not know, and that someone should ask the tutors at Vell.
I asked the carter what happens to the answers. He said they go to the test box. He said the answers are read by the tutors, and marked, and kept, and some of them go back into the drill, and some go on the shelf with the spoiled pages, for the clerks to look at in spring.
I think that is a strange thing to be part of. A letter I write is read by a clerk, and marked, and filed. It might be drilled on. It might be tested. It might be kept, and found in fifty years by someone who wants to know how the inn was in a long winter.
Write when the roads are open. Tell me whether the test box is full.
Sage, the stable door, the Halfway
%%
Letter: Dace to the council at Vell
Dear council,

I am no tutor, so read this kindly. I write what I saw at Vell in Blossom, when Nessa showed me the big mind at the relay house there.

It used to read a page a letter at a time. Now it reads pieces of words. A piece is a part that comes up again and again: read and ing, help and ers, kind and ness. The tutors gave each piece a place, the way a letter had a place. The window holds sixty pieces and so it holds far more of the page than before.

Nessa says the mind found most of the pieces itself, from the writing, and the tutors did not pick them all. Some of the pieces are strange to her. She says the mind keeps what it finds useful.

Why I write: the school at Three Wells wants to teach the children how this works. Not the crystal, the idea. Words come in parts. The parts repeat. If a mind knows the parts, it holds more at once. Our teacher can draw that on a board in one lesson.

I ask the council to send a short primer, in plain words, that a child can follow. We have the glass for the school and the stone from Copperhold. We lack only the words.

Dace, mayor of Three Wells
%%
Letter: Ola to her son, the bucket
Dear Pim,

Your father says you will not come home for the midwinter fire, because you are on the night shift at Vell. I say that is no excuse. A fire does not wait for a shift, and neither should you.

Now the news. The new apprentice at the mine gate is called Brim, and it is very quick. Yesterday the cook wanted water from the well, and called out, "Bucket!" Brim heard that word and nothing else. It ran to the well, filled the bucket, ran back to the kitchen, and poured the water over the cook. The cook had been bending over the stove at the time. She stood up in the steam and said a word I will not write.

Brim stood very still. Then it went back to the well, filled the bucket again, carried it all the way to the kitchen, and set it down by the cook's foot. It had understood the word bucket. It had not understood the cook.

The cook says she has forgiven it. She has not forgiven the bucket.

Come home soon, or write. Either is fine. Both would be better.

Your mother,
Ola
%%
Letter: Pell to Ambrook
Dear Mother and Father,
I am writing from Lowmarsh, where the boardwalks go on so long that you forget which way the land is. The market is set on the reed beds at the edge of the marsh, with a torch on every post and a stall on every second board. It is the strangest market on the Long Road, and the best one for eels.
I came in on the cart from the coast with a load of salt and four bolts of blue wool. Mother will be pleased to hear the wool sold at once. The salt sold slowly, because the people here already have so much of it from the coast that they wash their boots in it. I had to take two sacks back up the road, which is an insult to a carter.
The festival started on the Blossom evening. The whole marsh came out, with lamps on the water and the boats tied up in rows like a family at a long table. A woman from the healing house sang a song about the frogs. It was not a good song. Everyone joined in on the chorus, which was the best part, and the frogs answered from the reeds, which was the second best.
There is a prize for the best boat decorated with flowers. The winner was a fisherman named Dob, who put a whole orchard of blossom on his prow, and his boat sank under the weight of it at the first turn. Dob says that is not a fault of the design. The judges say it was the flowers. The boat is still at the bottom, and so is the prize, which was a cask of ale. There are men who would sooner dive for the ale than for the fish.
I have made one friend here, a boy named Wim who minds the fish weir. He says the weir is the only honest thing in Lowmarsh, because the fish either come in or they do not. He has an apprentice. It sorts the eels by size. It has never once got a size wrong, and Wim is proud of it in the way a father is proud of a son who has not yet learned to be quiet.
I will be home at the end of Sowing. Keep my bed warm. Keep the cat off it. It is a very different cat from the one at Lowmarsh, but I think they would get along.
Your son,
Pell
%%
Letter: Kester to Nan Ilse, the pie
Dear Nan Ilse,

Mother made a pie for the market, and it was a disaster. I am writing to tell you all of it before Father tells it wrong.

It was going to be apple and honey. Mother had six apples from Ambrook in the basket, very red and very good. She went to the shelf for the honey, the big jar with the cloth tied on top. It was heavy, and she was pleased. She said, that is honey, I can tell by the weight.

It was not honey. It was salt. Somebody had put the salt jar where the honey jar goes, and the labels were turned round, and nobody noticed. Mother says the weight is the only thing that lies in this store.

She did not taste the filling. She said there was no time. The pie went in the oven with a whole cup of salt in it, and it came out brown and proud. At the market she set it on the stall next to the honey cakes, with a sign that said Apple and Honey, Best in Vell.

Oren from the copying room bought the first slice, because he always buys the first slice. He bit it. Then he went very quiet and very red. He chewed for a long time, and then he said, politely, Kester, is this meant for the pig?

The pig at the market got the rest. The pig was very happy. It is the only one who liked the pie.

Father says it was the saltiest pie ever sold in Vell, which is a kind of record. Mother is cross with herself. She says next Melon she will taste everything.

I have been told to write that I am sorry I laughed. I am not sorry. I laughed so hard I had to sit down on the market step, and a cart went round me.

Please write back. Tell me about the sea, and whether the fish there are as bad at pies as I think.

Your grandson,
Kester
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel, a farm in summer
Dear Bel,

I am on my cousin Marta's farm, a short walk past the east well. The Archive has sent me for one week of summer, which is a week more than I have taken in six years. Ulla says I am to rest. I am resting by watching six apprentices build a barn.

I will tell you all of it when I am home. For now I will say only this. They made a plan, and they put it on the wall. Nobody told them how.

The cat here sits on my papers. I do not mind.

Oren
%%
Letter: Ree to Pell, a quarrel
Pell,

I am writing this because you will not stand still long enough to hear it, and because a letter cannot walk away whistling.

You sold my red wool at the market for four emeralds a skein. That was the price of the yellow. The red took me twice as long. I told you the red was twice the work.

I am not angry about the emeralds. I am angry that you told the wool merchant my brown was "a little muddy". You know it is my best brown. You know how I stir it. I stirred that pot for two days.

So here is what I want. Write back and tell me the price should have been six. Say it out loud at the fair too, where folk can hear. Then we will be even. And bring the cart on Leaffall, because the wool will be heavy.

The sheep are well. The grey one had two lambs, both white. The cat has moved into the dye shed and will not come out.

Your sister,
Ree
%%
Letter: Ree to Sella
Dear Sella,

I came for supper and ate two bowls of soup. Your brother spoke about roofs before the meal, during the meal, and after the meal. He was very good at keeping his promise in order.

I told him the house stayed dry. He said that was because the rain was kind. I said the rain had been heavy enough to wake me. He said the stone must be heavy enough to hold. We left the roof where it was.

Thank you for the apples. I ate one on the way home and gave one to your horse. The third is still on my shelf. I put it inside a pot, because she watched me put it there.

There is a new board by the Northpoint gate. The keeper has written the spring road times on it. The cart from Vell should reach us after Blossom. I have asked for a lamp wick and a jar of honey. If the cart is full, I can wait for the next one.

I have been on the night watch for six nights. The long dark makes the little sounds seem large. Last night I heard a fox on the north path. Lantern watched the window. I watched the door. The fox went away with no news for either of us.

The blue cap is warm. Its patch is bright under the stair lamps. I wear it even when I am not cold, because you made it for me. I have set the green scarf aside for mending. The horse left enough cloth to make a band for it.

I will come after my next watch. Keep one bowl for me and none for your brother until he agrees not to mend the roof with a speech.

Your friend,
Ree
%%
Letter: A stable hand to her sister
Dear Rilla,

You asked me to tell you what the market at Vell is like. I have been. It is bigger than I expected.

Stalls stand all the way across the square. The honey seller has hives on a table and the bees fly about in a calm way, as if they know the buyer is coming. The wool seller has a basket of dyed wool and a basket of undyed. He lets the children feel them. The children always choose the red.

Merle runs the east field. She has a horse for every cart and a kind word for every driver. She did not have enough horses this year. She said she borrowed one from the tutor house. The gelding is brown and slow and good with the carts. She treats him like a prize. She calls him Sir.

There is a new apprentice at the market. It carries the honey jars from the stall to the carts. It has copper hands and a small crystal in its chest, and it walks very carefully, one jar at a time. The honey seller pats it on the shoulder when it gets it right. It does not smile. It does not talk. It just goes back for another jar.

I watched it for an hour. It never dropped one.

I bought a pot of honey with a comb in it. I am saving it for your visit.

Your sister,
Lota
%%
Letter: Ree to Ama, over the swarm
Dear Ama,

Thank you for the swarm. I know it was not your fault, and I know the bees were not asked, and I know the honey stall has been sticky for a week, which is my problem and not yours.

But I want to put one thing right. You said on the square that the swarm was yours by the rule of the market. The rule is in the book, and I have read it. The rule says a swarm belongs to the keeper who takes it. You took it. So it is yours. That I accept.

The honey stall, however, was mine. I paid the rent for it, and I put the jars on the trestles, and I sat behind them through a whole morning of bees. I am not asking you to pay the rent. I am asking you to tell the market that the bees came to my stall first, so that the honey prize at the autumn fair can be argued about properly.

You will say the bees chose the tree. I agree. You will say the bees do not know what a stall is. I agree. But I know what a prize is, and I know what it is worth to a trader who has been second for three years.

Please send me one jar of the swarm's honey, from the first comb. I will not sell it. I will keep it on the shelf above the scale, where it can see the market, and I will look at it on bad mornings, and remember that some things come to you without your asking, and are very sweet.

Your neighbor at the stall,
Ree

P.S. The mayor's dog has tried to eat the wax. He says it was a test of the bees, and the bees did not object.
%%
Letter: the market clerk to the tutors
To the tutor house at Vell, from the market clerk of Kettle Ridge.

Sirs,

I write about the helper at the market gate, which has now carried three loads to the wrong place in one week. I do not blame the helper, which does what it is told. I blame the orders, which I wrote myself, and which I now see were not plain.

On the first day, the carter said: take the wool to the mill and be quick. The helper took the last word. It ran. On the second day, the baker said: put the bread in the cold room. The helper heard only the word room, and it put the bread in the copying room, where it was very cold and very much in the way.
The worst mistake was on the fourth day. The inn at Kettle Ridge asked for a pie for the festival. The cook wrote on her card: fetch the salt for the pie. The helper fetched the honey, which was on the next shelf, and the pie tasted of the sea, which is not what the inn wanted. The cook will not forgive the market. She says the helper should be sent back to the tutors for a second drilling.

I ask you to send a tutor who can write plain orders for the market, and who can explain what the helper does with a sentence it does not understand. I would also like the tutors to tell me what to do when a helper is asked a question it cannot answer. The helper cannot say that it does not know. It only chooses one of its eight words, and runs.

Please send a tutor by the next cart. The bread is waiting. So is the cook.

Yours in haste,
the market clerk of Kettle Ridge
%%
Letter: Corin to Tam
Dear Tam,

Pell's cart brought your apples safely to Saltreach. One was bruised, so I ate it before it could spoil. This was careful work.

I heard about the new lesson at Vell. Nessa says words sit in a mind like places on a field. Words used alike sit near each other. I can see why bread and flour might be neighbors. I wonder where a boat sits.

The sea has been rough this autumn. Keep your roof tied down.

Corin
%%
Letter: Briar to Mother
Dear Mother,

Thank you for the apples. The tarts were gone before the oven was cool. I hid two for myself and found them eaten. I will not say by whom. He keeps the inn.

Now, the news. The inn has an apprentice.

It came on Pell's cart from Vell, in a long crate with straw. There was a note from the tutors tied to its arm. "A stores mind. Tested on sacks and chests. Not tested on kitchens." I read it twice. Then Cato read it three times. Then we both looked at the crate.

It stood up out of the straw and looked round. Then it stood in the pantry for an hour and looked at the shelves. Cato says it was learning the pantry. I say it was frightened. Neither of us can prove it.

You asked in your last letter if it will take my place. Mother, it cannot cook. It cannot taste. It cannot tell a ripe pumpkin from a dull one. On the second day I gave it a spoon of the stew to hold, to see what it would do. It held the spoon for a long time. That was all it did. I took the spoon back.

But it can count. I will say that for it. In three days it knew every sack in the stores. Cato has never known where the salt was. Now he asks, and the apprentice goes and stands beside the salt. It does not speak. It stands there until he sees it. This is a great improvement on Cato, who stands there until he forgets what he wanted.

We have named it Thimble. Cato did that. He says a thimble is small and keeps you from being pricked. I said it was not small. He said that was not the point.

The first week was slow. Thimble put the flour at the front, which is correct, and the salt at the back, which is not. Then it put the apples by the door, because it saw a child leave one there. Then it put the child's apple back in the sack. Nothing has been lost. Everything has been moved at least twice.

The tutor came by on the fifth day. A woman called Nessa, from Vell, with a very quiet voice. She watched Thimble for an hour. She said it needed more drills on the cold pantry, because it learned in a warm store. She said a mind is only as good as what it was shown. I liked her. She ate three bowls of my soup and asked how I do the bread.

Last night I found Thimble in the pantry after closing. The door was open. It stood in the dark, looking at the shelves, all in order. I said, "They are all in order." It stayed. I left the lamp.

I do not know what to make of it, Mother. But the pantry has never been so tidy, and the soup has not been late once all spring.

The roof is dry, the stores are in order, and the pig song is still sung in my kitchen by people who should be chopping. That is spring.

Write soon. Send more apples.

Your Briar
%%
Letter: Marda to Pell, after the thaw
Pell,
You have gone up the road to Three Wells and I am writing to you because you will not stop asking me questions. So here are the answers, in order, and then you will leave me alone.
The family from the coast left this morning, on the first cart through the pass. The eldest woman, Tessa, wanted to give me a coin for the soup. I refused it. She put it on the windowsill anyway, under the blue bowl. It is still there, and I am not going to touch it.
The children asked me the way to Vell. I told them. They asked me the way to the sea, and I did not know that one. The old man asked me to tell him what the Halfway has in its cellar. I told him beetroot and hope. He laughed for the first time all winter.
Mud the horse has gone out to the far field and has rolled in the mud, which is what horses do in Thaw. She is happy. I have decided she is not to be sold.
The mill race is loud and full. The wheel squeaks. Hobb says he will fix the squeak, and I told him the wheel has been trying to tell us something all winter, and perhaps we should listen. He did not like that. He went out to oil it.
Come back by Sowing and I will feed you properly. Bring your ledger. I want to see what you wrote about the soup. I know you wrote something. You have been writing all winter, and it was not about the weather.
Marda
%%
Letter: Kell to Tam, the song contest
Tam,

You will want to hear about the song contest, and you will want to laugh at me, so I will tell it quickly before you can start.

The contest was held in the barn at the foot of the north ridge, on the last night of Apple. Eleven farms sent singers. There were lanterns on hooks along every beam, and the hay was swept so clean that the children sat on it without complaint, which is a first. The judges were three old women from the mill, who have judged every contest since before the mill had a roof. They sat by the door and ate pears, one after another, and never once looked up from the pears.

Our farm sang my song about the stone. You have not heard it. It goes like this: the stone is cut, the wall is built, and the wall stands. It has four verses, and the last one is the one the children sing loudest. Pip's cousin from the ridge taught the boys the tune, so the boys sang it very loudly, and the judges had to stop eating pears to listen.

We did not win. A farm from the far side of the hill won, with a song about a cow that had run away to the river and come back wet. It was a silly song. Everyone sang the chorus, even the judges. The old woman with the most pears said it was the best thing she had heard since the new bell, and I do not think she was joking.

But at the end of the night, after the cups were put away, a girl came and asked me to write the stone song down for her, the whole of it, so she could sing it at her own farm. I wrote it on the back of a feed bill, and she read it and said the last verse was wrong. I said it was not wrong, it was just short. She said that was the same thing. I think she is right.

So we did not win, but I have a new singer and a new verse. That is better than a cup.

Your brother, who is hoarse,
Kell
%%
Letter: Ilse to her aunt, the cough
Dear Aunt Bett,

The cough is still at Lowmarsh. Some days it is quiet, and we think it has gone. Then a child coughs at the well, and the whole row of houses goes silent.

Wren says it is not catching. She says it carefully, which is how she says things she is not sure of. She has boiled every well by the boat houses. She has moved the sick to the drier beds at the healing house. She has asked the old men who fish the mere what they drink. They drink from the mere, as they always have.

Some folk blame the water. Some blame the reeds, which are rotting faster this year. Some blame the ships, though nobody can say how a ship coughs. The mill keeper says it is the mines, because the ore carts pass the boat houses and leave dust on the path. I think it is all of it, or none of it. I am tired of guessing.

Please do not send me honey. I have Wren's honey, and Wren's jars, and Wren's temper, and that is plenty.

Your loving niece,
Ilse
%%
Essay: what the drills were for (Bel
Bel, about nine, at the school house by the east well, for the teacher.

The great drills were when the tutors taught the reading minds to read. They did it about the year 190. I asked my grandmother and she said it was about then, and the texts do not agree, so I say about.

A reading mind does not read the way we do. It looks at a window of about sixty letters and guesses the next one. It does this over and over. When it guesses wrong it changes a little. When it guesses right it does not change. Do it a great many times and it gets better. The tutors call it drilling.

But a mind needs a lot of pages to get better. So the councils asked everyone to send their letters to Vell. My grandmother sent hers. She said she sent a letter about a goat. I asked why a goat. She said because that is what she had.

The clerks took out copies and spoiled pages. They kept a test box of pages no mind was ever drilled on. They tested the minds on those pages, because a mind can learn a page by heart and not learn to read. "Never send an untested mind to the fields," the tutors say.

People said the words over the door at Vell again. "We will keep everything we write." My grandmother says it. My teacher says it. I say it too.

Whose letters went in nobody agrees on. Some say every letter. Some say only some. I do not know. I think the goat went in.

Bel
%%
Letter: Mara to Finch
Dear Finch,

The room at the edge of Saltreach is ready. You may sleep there while you mend the roof over the old net store. The bed is narrow, but it is dry. The window looks toward the harbor wall, and the morning light comes in before the gulls start calling.

I have set a jug of water on the table and a clean blanket on the bed. The blanket is wool from my sister's sheep. It has one brown patch where the sheep stood in mud. I washed it twice. The patch stayed.

There is bread in the cupboard and apples in the bowl. Please leave one apple for me. Last time you stayed, you ate all four and said you thought they were for the roof.

The roof can wait until after breakfast. The boards are stacked by the door. They are oak, and they are heavy, so do not carry them alone. I can help when I finish mending the nets.

Mara
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, Ribbon Day
Dear Mira,

Today was Ribbon Day, and I tied yours.

I tied it to the top of the north sail, where the wind is. It is the red one, the long one, the beetroot with a tail. Pip held the ladder. It held it so still that I thought it had gone to sleep.

On the first of Blossom the ridge dresses the windmills. Every family ties a wool ribbon to a sail for each person in the house. They tie one more for anyone who is away. Then Sefa turns the sails into the wind. All the ribbons stream out together, and everybody shouts. Then there are pies.

Sefa counted the ribbons for the tally board. 412 this year. 340 last year. She says it is because the ridge has more cousins. We do have a great many cousins. She said it very fast.

There were fewer stalls at the market than last year. Sefa says it is the wind. I say it is the wind too. Still, the pies were good. Brin's pie won, because it was the only one that stayed on the plate.

Then the dance on the threshing floor. I asked Pip to dance. It put down its bucket and stood in the line, arms at its sides, a step behind everyone. By the third song it was in step. Hanna says it dances better than I do. Hanna is right.

There was talk at the stalls, as there always is. A carter from Copperhold says the miners have stopped going below the ninth level. The stone below it is warm, he says. Warm like a loaf. The egg woman says it is only the sun, coming down through the rock. The carter says the sun does not go that far down. The egg woman says then how would he know. They bought nothing from each other for the rest of the day.

I did not ask which of them is right. I bought bread.

At dusk we lit a fire on the ridge, and sat round it. The ribbons stirred on the sails in the dark. You could hear them. I put some straw on the fire for you.

If your lamp is lit tonight, look south. There is a fire on the ridge. It is small from there, but it is ours.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Bel to the Archive, the windmill
Dear Oren,

I am writing from a barn at Kettle Ridge. Mother and I came up on the bread cart. The winter market is in the barn because of the snow. It smells of straw and hot pie and sheep. A sheep is standing at my elbow. Her name is Biscuit. She has eaten the corner of my mitten.

There are windmills on the ridge. I had never seen one close. It is taller than our school, and the sails go round slowly and creak. Creak, creak, creak. Sefa the miller says it has creaked since she was a girl. She says a mill that does not creak is a mill that has died.

So here is my question. Why does a windmill creak? Is it sad? Is it hungry? Does it need oil? I asked Sefa. She said yes to all three. That is not an answer.

Also, a new tutor comes tomorrow to teach the apprentices of the ridge. Tam says she is young and has a very big box. I may watch if I stand at the back and say nothing. I will say nothing. Mostly.

Please write to the top farm, the one up the hill with the wooden fox on the shelf.

From Bel, age ten, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Tam to Ida, Bel is well
Dear Ida,

Your Bel is well and eating. I write this first because you will have been looking out of the bakery window every morning since the cart left.

She has been here three days. She has eaten a loaf a day, which Brin says is a record for a girl of her size. She sleeps in my sister's old room, under three blankets and a sheep. I did not put the sheep there. Biscuit put herself there.

She has asked me 41 questions. I counted, because she told me to. I knew nine of the answers. Brin knew four more and was proud of it.

Now the news you will want to hear from me before Bel tells it, because she will tell it better.

The new tutor came yesterday. Her name is Cress. She is young, with a very big box and a very small voice. To show the ridge what a tested mind can do, she gathered everyone in the barn. Sefa's new apprentice, Scoop, was to sort flour sacks from wheat sacks. I have seen Scoop work. It is a good sorter.

It did not sort. It stood in the middle of the barn with a sack in each hand and put them all on one pile. Twenty sacks, nineteen on the same pile. Brin laughed so hard he had to sit on a pumpkin. Sefa did not laugh, which was worse. Cress went the color of a beetroot.

Then your Bel said, from the back, where she had been told to say nothing, "Why not tip some from each sack into a bowl?" Nobody knew what she meant. Cress asked her. Bel explained. It took a while. When it was done, Cress sat down on a bale and looked at Bel for a long time. Then she sent for bowls.

Scoop sorted the bowls. Eighteen out of twenty right. The barn cheered. Sefa nodded once, which on the ridge is the same as a cheer.

Pip held the lantern for the whole lesson and did not move. It was the calmest one in the barn.

She comes home when the road is open. Biscuit has eaten one mitten. I will send the other when I have found it. It is in the straw somewhere.

Keep the torches lit,
Tam
%%
Letter: Sal to Fern, the fish are back
Fern,
The fish are back in the far water, and the men are sulking about it, because they had been told the sea was empty. It is not empty. It only moved.
Take the eggs to the boat at dawn, and do not let Ansel's wife tell you the price. She will say it is too high. It is not.
Your net is mended. The gulls have stolen the spare cork, and I have given them the stale bread from the Halfway Inn in exchange. It was a fair deal for the gulls.
Come to the wall at dusk and see the lamps. The fishers sing when they come in, and they are not always in tune.
Sal
%%
Letter: Emmet to Hara
Dear Hara,

The well ran dry on the second day of Blossom. We drew up a bucket of mud and one beetle. The beetle seemed pleased with the trip.

I borrowed your horse to fetch water from the lower spring. I brought her back before dusk, with a clean nose and a burr in her mane. I will brush it out when you come.

The big mind at Copperhold wrote back when I asked how to mend the well rope. It said to find the worn place, cut it away, and tie the good ends together. It also said it could not tell whether the well had failed or the rope had. That was fair. I had not said which.

The new rope holds. I owe you a bucket of water and a handful of carrots.

Emmet
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel
Dear Bel,
You asked me in your last letter whether the minds at the relay houses know what the sea is like. I have been thinking about it for a week, and I have an honest answer, which is that I do not know.
The big minds have read a great many letters about the sea. They have read the sailors' logs from Saltreach, the price lists of the fish market, the children's essays about storms, and a book by a fisherman's wife about her husband's boat, which is very beautiful and very sad. So a mind knows many things about the sea.
But it has never been on the water. It has never felt a wave come under the keel. When it writes about the sea, it writes what people have written. Sometimes it says so. Sometimes it does not, and then you must remember to ask.
I think the most honest minds say: I have read about this. I have not seen it. You must ask someone who has. That is the answer I would give if I were a mind. I have tried to give it myself, and I am a clerk, so I know it is harder than it looks.
Your teacher is right to ask. Keep asking. The Archive is for everyone who wonders.
Oren
Clerk at the Archive at Vell
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira
Mira,

The beetroot is in. I am telling you first because you will only ask about it. The long field gave a good crop. The ditch is clear. There. Now you can stop worrying about the ditch. I know you were worrying. You always worry about the ditch.

Pip helped. He is getting better with the cart. He only tipped it once and the beetroot rolled and we picked them all up, every one, and he said sorry about forty times. I told him a tipped cart is a lesson and he should tip it only once. He said he would try to tip it zero times. I said that was even better.

Now the news you will not want.

We had spiders in the barn. A nest of them, big ones, in the corner behind the hay. Pip found them first and he shouted and I came running with the torch and we lit the whole barn up. We drove them out. It took all evening. The hens were furious about the noise. We burned out the nest and swept the corner and put a torch there and another torch and I will keep a torch there all winter. The cows are fine. The hay is fine. Nothing was lost but an evening and my nerves.

I heard the melon story. Did you hear the melon story? Old Fen at the market had a melon too big for his cart. He could not lift it. Three men could not lift it. They rolled it to the stall on planks and it took six of them and half a morning. He sold it to the inn for the harvest supper and they cut it open and it was good, they say, the sweetest in years. He has kept the seeds. He says next year he will grow a bigger one. I said Fen, one was enough. He said no such thing.

Tell me about the lights. You did not tell me in your last letter. You wrote about your hands and the fox and the ditch, which is my ditch, and I had to hear the lights from a peddler on the road, and he did not know anything. He said they are fires. He said they are stars that fell. He said a lot of things. I would rather hear it from you.

I am not afraid of lights. I am afraid of my sister not telling me things. Write to me.

Tam

P.S. Pip says hello. He says to tell you the relay is working and he heard it click. He is very pleased with the click.
%%
Letter: Juno to Gran, the lanterns
Dear Gran,

We had the lantern night on the water, and I am writing to tell you all of it, even the boring bits, because you like the boring bits.

First, the boats. Every family on the reed bank takes one lantern, a paper one, with a little light inside it behind glass. Candles go in glass here, the teacher says, so they do not set the reeds alight. The boats go out in a line on the mere. Ours was the fourth. Mab was rowing, and she said she could row straight, but she could not, so we went round in a circle twice.

Then the singing. Hobb came down from the Halfway Inn, which is a long way, and he sang the whole of the long song about the fish with his eyes shut. Some of the words were wrong. Nobody corrected him. It was the best bit.

Then the food. Fish pies, bread, honey cakes, and a bowl of the pale cheese from Ambrook that you always say is too soft. It was too soft. I had three pieces.

Then the lights. The lanterns went out over the water one at a time, and when they were all out, the mere was full of small lights moving. The reeds were black against them. Mam cried a bit. She said it was the smoke. There was no smoke.

Then I fell in, which was the best bit for me, because the water was warm and everyone laughed. I got a towel and a pie. Please do not tell Mam I told you about the pie.

Love from Juno

P.S. Mab says to tell you she can row straight now. She cannot.
%%
Letter: Gale to Len
Dear Aunt Len,

The slate came today. Father brought it home from the inn, wrapped in his spare shirt. He said the parcel rode in the cart all the way from Vell. I washed the shirt before he could put it back on.

Thank you for the slate. I wrote my name on it, then rubbed the name away. The board keeps a pale mark where the G was. I like that it remembers a little.

There is a new school room above the tool store. The wall is rough, and the window has one pane of glass. We sit on split logs. Master Pell says the room will do until the next carts bring boards.

I can now add the sacks at the store without using my fingers. I still use them when the sum is large.

Gale
%%
Letter: Ossa to Hesk, the new apprentice
Dear Hesk,
I hear the crew at Copperhold has a new apprentice. Is it true? Is it a good one? They say you are drilling it yourself, with Clank to help.
I am writing from the hamlet by the road, where I make candles and sell them to the miners. I have a bet on you. Hett the dog says the apprentice will be good. Fenn at the inn says it will break within a month. I said a month and a day. If I win, I get a pie.
So tell me the truth. Does it carry? Does it follow? Does it stay when told? I know you are busy, and gruff, and you will say it is nothing. But the whole hamlet is waiting.
I enclose a candle. It is a long one. Light it when the apprentice does its first right thing, and let it burn all the way down.
Your friend in wax,
Ossa
%%
Letter: Greer to her cousin Nell
Dear Nell,

The fair is over and the square is full of straw and dropped pie. I sold thirty-eight rounds of cheese and gave two away, and the two I gave away were the best ones, which is how it always goes. Hesk bought a whole round and carried it down the mine to show the night shift. He says they ate it with bread at the bottom of the long stair and it was the best meal they had had in a month. I do not know if that is true or if he is being kind. Hesk is not often kind, so I think it is true.

The fiddler played until the lamps were lit. The apprentices stood in a row and watched him, all eight of them, and did not move. Someone told them it was music. They kept watching. When he stopped they all turned their heads at once, like birds, and waited for more. The children thought this was very funny. The tutors did not. A tutor from Vell was there, a tall quiet woman named Nessa, and she said: they have never heard a fiddle before, and now they have, and that is that. She wrote it in her book. She writes everything in her book.

Clank was there. He is the big one at the mine, iron and copper, and he carried crates all day without being asked twice. When the fair was done he picked up the dropped pie from the square, every piece, and put it in a bucket. No one told him to. He just did it. Hesk says that is not in any order he knows. He says maybe Clank decided it himself. He says it quietly, like it might not be true.

Now the news I have been keeping for the end. Tam is home. He came down from Kettle Ridge with his cart and his apprentice Pip, and he brought beetroot and a sack of wheat and a jar of honey, and he would not say where the honey came from. He said it came from the sea. We all looked at him. He said it is a long story and Tilly will tell it when she is older.

He is staying through Leaffall. He says the ridge is quiet and the fields are in and the windmills are squeaking and there is nothing to do but wait for the frost. So he is here, and he is untidy, and he has put his boots in the wrong place twice already, and I am glad.

Come and see us before the Frost. Bring the little one. There is cheese.

Greer
%%
Letter: Edda to Sella, the loose plank
Dear Sella,

I have stayed one more night at the Brown Hen. The bridge near the inn has a loose plank, and the keeper will not let carts cross until it is fixed. He says a broken wheel costs more than a day's wait.

A crew of three apprentices came to mend it. They had a long list of work, not one order for the whole bridge. They checked the boards, brought tools from the shed, and set a rail beside the path. One apprentice held the rail while another fitted a board. The third kept the cart back.

The crew wrote its own order cards for these steps. I saw the cards on the keeper's bench. One said to bring the oak board. Another said to stay by the cart. The cards held the work in order, so the crew did not have to wait for a person to tell it each small thing.

The big mind at the relay house had helped them plan before they left. It could not know the bridge had a loose plank until the crew sent word. Then it gave an answer through the relay. The crew still had to look at the bridge and choose the right board.

The keeper asked me not to touch the tools. I only touched the bell.

The bridge is firm now. I crossed it on foot, then crossed it again because I wanted to be sure. The keeper says that was not a test.

Your friend,
Edda
%%
Letter: Emmet to Hara
Dear Hara,

The well gives water again. Not much, but enough for the garden and the two cows. The mason mended the crack and cleared silt from the mouth. He said we should draw slowly for three days, then see if the water rises.

I did as he said. I did not let the sheep help.

Thank you for the old plan. The mason found the buried line by the birch stump, but it was full of mud and did not lead to the well. My mother says it once carried water to a small patch of beans. There are no beans there now, only grass and a flat stone. We have left the line alone.

I have been thinking about the big mind's letters. The first time I wrote, I wanted a quick answer. I asked if the sheep had eaten my seed, and the mind asked for signs instead of pretending it had watched them. I was annoyed. Now I see that the answer kept me from blaming the wrong creature.

You said the mind learned from tutors' marks. I asked the keeper how they knew the marks were fair. He said the tutors compared answers and talked about them. They also kept letters aside for tests. The mind did not read those while it learned. The tutors wanted to know if it could answer new letters, not only the ones it had seen before.

The keeper said there was still room to disagree. One tutor thought a kind answer should be short. Another thought it should explain the reason. The mind learned from the scores they gave, and the scores came from people with different views. No one at Copperhold claimed that a score made the mind wise.

I asked the mind if the well would stay full through Melon. It said it could not know from the repair alone. The spring, the rain, and our use of water all mattered. It suggested I keep a daily mark on the tally board. That is a plain thing to do, so I have done it.

The horse is back at your gate. Her strap is mended, and I brought a sack of wheat for her feed. I have also brought a small jar of honey. The beekeeper said it was too dark to sell, so I bought it cheap. It tastes fine in tea.

Come by when the well has risen. We can sit by the barn and read the marks. If the sheep sit on the tally board, I will start again.

Emmet
%%
Letter: Rill to Wynn
Dear Wynn,

Thank you for the honey. I did not share it with my grandmother. She said I should. I did not. I am sorry. I ate it all.

I have been practicing the goat song. I am making it longer. There is now a part where the goat goes to market and a part where the goat meets a sheep. The sheep is a friend of the goat. The sheep does not eat the hat. Only the goat eats the hat. That is the whole joke.

My grandmother says the song is getting too long and people will get bored. I said they will not get bored because I make the goat noise every time the goat does something. She said fair enough.

I have a question about cheese. My grandmother said you are the best person to ask. Why does the honey cheese have honey in it? I know why. It is because it is honey cheese. But my friend says it is because the bees make the cheese. I said the bees do not make the cheese, the bees make the honey. He said how do you know. I said I will ask Wynn. So I am asking. Do the bees make the cheese?

Also why does the soft cheese have a rind and the pressed one does not. My friend did not ask that one. I am just interested.

I hope you come back in the autumn. My grandmother said you will. She said save the corner room. I did not know which one that was so I asked. It is the one with the small window. I know it now.

From your friend,
Rill
(aged ten)
P.S. I did share the honey a little.
%%
Letter: Ysolde to Greer, the new road
Dear Greer,

The new road is cut as far as the second bend. You can see it from the Three Wells well if you stand on a bucket. Dace has stood on the bucket. She says it is the finest road in the district, and that she thought of it herself.

The stones came up from the quarry on eleven carts. One driver drove into the ditch and sang the whole way out.

Three apprentices came from the Vell drill yard to help. They carry, they lever, and they stop when told. The tallest one does not blink, and it looks at a stone the way Hollis looks at bread. The children have named the other two Grit and Plank.

Hester the cow fell in the new ditch on the first day. She is fine, and has eaten a good deal of the ditch's grass since.

You are invited to the opening on the third of Swarm, or the day after, whichever the road allows.

Your cousin, who has walked it twice,
Ysolde
%%
Letter: Wren to Aldo, spiders
Dear Aldo,

You asked me if there is a remedy for spiders. There is. It is called a broom. But I know that is not what you meant, so I will answer properly.

Your barn is a good barn. It is dry, it has dark corners, and it has flies. A spider sees all that and thinks, here is a fine house. You cannot change what a spider thinks. You can only make the house less fine.

Here is what I would do.

First, take the old hay out of the corners and burn it, away from the barn. Hay that has sat all spring is a spider's feather bed.

Second, sweep the beams. Use a long pole with a rag tied at the end. Do it in the morning, when the spiders are slow. Wear a hat. Moss told me once that one dropped on his neck, and it did not enjoy that.

Third, hang bunches of dried mint and a little wormwood from the rafters. I have some drying now. The smell is fresh to us and unpleasant to them. It is a good bargain.

Fourth, and this is the hard one: keep the torches lit in the evening by the doors. Spiders come out at night, as you know, and the big ones are a nuisance on the road to the well.

One small spider in a high corner is not a danger. It eats flies. Let it live, and name it if you like. I have one called Madam.

Come by on market day, if you have the time to walk. I will have the bunches tied by then.

Wren
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the stuck cart
Dear Mira,

The cart is stuck. It is in the ditch on the ridge road, up to the axle, on the one bit of road that Pip said was dry.

Biscuit got into the cart to supervise. Then the horse would not pull, because Biscuit was in the way, and Biscuit would not get out, because she had found the apple bag. Pip pushed from the back. Pip only ever says haul, and it says it very well, but it does not say it while pushing.

I tied the rope to the windmill post and the other end to the horse, and the windmill squeaked the whole time, as if it was helping.

We got it out on the third try, when Biscuit got off to see what the fuss was about. The cart is now at the top of the ridge, and the apples are at the bottom of the ditch, which is where Biscuit would have wanted them.

Your brother, Tam

P.S. The sheep is not stuck. She is only sitting.
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel, the Vell market
Dear Bel,

When your school came to the Archive, Sorrel hurried you past the market on the way up the hill. She said there was no time. You looked back over your shoulder. I saw you. So here is the market, which you did not see, and which I think you should have.

It is held on the flat below the hill, in the market house, which now has a good roof. You come to it down the Long Road, and you can smell it before you can see it. There is ink, and hot bread, and wax, and honey, and something that I think is a sheep, but which Hob the paper seller says is only his coat.

The first stall is the paper stall. Hob keeps it. He is large, and his voice is small, and he sells two kinds of paper, reed and rag. Reed comes from Lowmarsh, and it is rough, and it drinks ink. Rag is smooth. A clerk prefers reed. A child prefers rag, because it takes a drawing of a frog better.

Next is the ink stall. Black, blue, brown, and a green for titles that the Archive does not use. The ink seller is hurt by this. I buy a bottle of it every spring to show I have no hard feelings. It sits on a shelf. It is a very nice green.

Then the quills. Then the wax. Then a stall that sells nothing but string. I do not know who buys it. Everyone does. It is always gone by noon.

The glassmakers have the corner, with their spyglasses and their lantern glass and a small purple dish, which is amethyst from Copperhold, set in a frame. I looked at it for a long time last market. It is the color of a bruise that has decided to be happy.

At the lamp stall a woman called Sela sells lanterns, each with a small card tied to the handle saying whose hands made it. I bought one for the sixth hall. I did not need it. I bought it for the card.

Pell has a stall too, at the end, with honey and apples. He wears a hat. It is always the same hat. He says the hat has been to Saltreach and back, and I believe him, because it looks like it.

At noon the market stops for a short time, and everyone eats. Nobody says anything. Then it starts again. By evening it is a quiet place with straw on the ground, and a few cats, and a boy sweeping.

I will tell you one thing more, about the day Nessa gave a lesson there with Box, and it went badly. I will not tell it. I have read her letter, and it is already filed. I will say only that the paper went for a walk, and came back, and that Hob is now very careful how he gives an order. He says it in six words. He says it twice.

Now a question for you, since you have had a great many for me. If you had a stall at the Vell market, what would you sell? I would like to know. I will put the answer in the finding book, under Bel, and under stalls.

The next time you come to Vell, I will take you down myself, and buy you a pie. It will not be about a pig.

Your friend,
Oren
%%
Notes: on the talking minds, spring
Written by Nessa, tutor at Vell, for the council. Copied into the archive in the 219th year.

The big minds now hold a conversation by letter with anyone the relays reach. This is new, and the council asks how it is done. I will put it as plainly as I can.

We do not drill a mind on answers any more, for talking. We let it answer, and then we score the answer. A good answer earns a good score. A cruel answer, or a false one, earns a bad score. The mind changes a little toward the good scores, as Una's sorting crystal changed toward the right sort. Do this many thousand times and the mind learns to be kind, to refuse what harms, and to say when it does not know.

It learns to say I do not know because we score a guess low and an honest doubt high. This is the whole of it. I have watched a mind learn it. It is slow and then it is quick.

Some ask whether such a mind thinks. That is Orla's question and I will not settle it in a note. I will say this: a mind that says it does not know is easier to trust than one that does not. And a mind that refuses what harms is easier to live beside.

The apprentices still answer an order with one of eight meanings. Only the big minds in the relay houses write back. Keep that in the primer.

N
%%
Letter: Ree to Sella
Dear Sella,

The blue cap fits. The green patch makes it easy to find when I put it down in the dark. I wore it on the tower stair last night. The wind tried to take it, but the patch held.

Thank you for the gift. I have put the cap beside my lamp, where I can reach it without waking Lantern. Lantern says nothing, of course. It only turns its head when I drop a spoon.

Your horse came home with a burr in her tail and no scarf. I brushed the burr out. She stood very still until I found the apple in my pocket. Then she stood less still.

The roof stayed dry through the rain. I slept for nearly four hours. This is not a boast. It is a report.

I will bring the borrowed saddle back tomorrow. One strap needs a new hole. I will ask the leather worker at the gate to make it. Please tell the horse I am not hiding apples in the saddle.

Ree
%%
Letter: Oren to Piper, about a list
Dear Piper,

Your list is a good list. I have read it three times. It is better than some lists I have filed that were written by grown people with good pens.

You asked about the weather. Yes, write the weather. A clerk who writes the weather can tell you what a day was like a hundred years later, and a clerk who does not leaves a hole where the day should be. Write whether it was cold or warm, whether it rained, whether the wind was up. Write it first, before the other things, because the weather is the same for everyone and the rest is not.

You asked if you should have written more. You should not. A list of everything is a list of nothing. You chose seven things and you put them in order and every one of them was a true thing that happened. That is the whole work, Piper. The rest is just more shelves.

I liked number three very much. I know that chicken. It has been in the archive door twice. I have written it down both times. I am beginning to think it is the same chicken and it is doing it on purpose.

One correction, and it is a small one. In number four you wrote that Nessa wrote something in her book and you think she was pleased. Do not write what you think. Write what you saw. You saw her write in her book. Whether she was pleased, only she knows, and she is not a person who says. If you had written the other thing I would have filed it as a guess and put a mark on it, and a mark on a page is a slow way to lose a fact.

I have put your list in the front hall, in the box for children's writing. Bel's essay on the wells is in the same box. You are in good company. The box is getting full, which is a good problem for a box to have.

Bring me the list of the next market and I will show you how the clerks number the pages. It is not hard. It is only careful.

Oren
Clerk at the Archive at Vell
%%
Letter: Wren to Hesk, the big mind
Dear Hesk,

Moss and I came down to the relay house at Lowmarsh to try the big mind on the stand. It is a strange thing to write a letter to a loaf of crystal, but the keeper says that is how it is done now. You write your question, the lamp blinks it north, and the answer comes back by letter.

I asked it about the grey cough. I gave it my notes on the patients, the water, the ships, the mines. It read them and wrote back. It said it did not know. It said the notes were not enough to tell one cause from another, and it would not guess.

I confess I was angry. I had waited a long time for that letter. Then I thought about it, and I was not angry. A mind that says it does not know is worth more than one that makes something up. I would rather a healer said it to me than smiled and guessed.

Hesk, you wrote that the Deep Works hum at night. I ask you plainly: does the stone grow warm below the eighth? Moss says I should not ask. I am asking.

Wren
Lowmarsh
%%
Letter: Oda to Sable, the first four
Dear Sable,

You asked what the first apprentices were like, so here is what I saw.

When I was a girl, I went up to Vell with my father, who carried wool for the Archive. In the front hall of the tutors' house stood four helpers in a row. They were made of copper and iron. The children of Vell called them apprentices, because that was the word the tutors used.

Each one had a mind in a crystal, set in its chest. The tutor said a crystal learns from what it is shown. I asked her why it learns. She said: Nobody has written that down, child. So I did not ask again.

The four did one thing each. One carried. One sorted the cloth. One swept the stair. One stood by the door, and the tutor said it was the best at standing, so it had the door.

Only Vell had them. Most towns had none, and we had none. So I tell you plainly: they were real, and small, and each did one thing well. The rest is a story, and you may tell it to your boy as one.

Your old friend,
Oda
%%
Letter: Tam to Ash, a homecoming
Dear Ash,

You asked me to write what it was like to come home, and I have been thinking about it all the way down the road, so here it is.

I took the cart to Saltreach with the beetroot and I was gone eleven days. On the way back I came over the hill above Kettle Ridge in the evening, and I could see the windmill turning and the lamp in the mill window, and I could hear the pigs before I could see them. They know the sound of my cart. I do not know how they know it, but they do.

Pip met me at the gate. She had kept the fields and fed the hens and mended the fence where the fox got in, and she had written it all down on a board so that I could see every thing she did, one line after another. I read the board and I said well done and she said she could not get the top field watered in time and I said that is the wind and not you. Then we had soup.

The dog would not leave my boots. The kettle sang. Mira sent a letter down by the relay and it was waiting on the table and it said the snow at Northpoint is up to the second stair and the fox has taken another sock and she has named the fox Sock and she says it is a good name and she is not sorry.

Here is what coming home is. It is the lamp in the window. It is the pigs knowing your cart. It is someone writing down what they did while you were gone, so you can read it and say well done. The road is long and the wind is cold and then you are home and there is soup.

Bring your dog when you come to Kettle Ridge. He can meet the pigs. They will be polite.

Your friend,
Tam
%%
Letter: Merle to her father
Dear Father,

The wedding was in Blossom. I thought you would want to know.

It was Tomas and Nessa's daughter, and it was held out past the reed beds on the dry ground, where the water lets go. Everyone came. Wren brought a jar of her best honey and a remedy for the cough, and she gave both. The frogs sang all evening. Nobody minded.

I cut the waymark for the path to the wedding ground. It is three blocks high, with a torch on top, and a figure and an arrow. I set it true. They will find their way back next year.

I am well. The work is good. The stone here is soft but it behaves if you are patient with it.

Your daughter,
Merle
%%
Letter: Oren to Lise
Dear Lise,

I have put the lesson in the packet. It is a copy of a copy, so one corner is missing. The missing corner has no words.

The lesson says a mind has numbers inside its layers. Each layer adds what it has found to the work. If those numbers grow wild, the next layer may grow wild too. The tutors bring each layer back to an even size. Then the mind can grow deeper without its numbers running away.

I hope that is plain enough for the children. I had to read it twice before I could say it simply.

I am glad the road is open. Please tell the children the stones are not a test.

Yours,
Oren
%%
Letter: Pell to Juna, the first prize
Dear Juna,

I won a ladle. Sit down, and I will tell it from the start.

The summer fair was today. Three Wells has never been so full. Ferris counted two hundred and ten people. Then a pig walked through, and he lost count.

Before the fair opened, the mayor stood on a barrel. This year, he said, the fair would have a prize. One only, for the best thing at the fair. It was a copper ladle, made by the smith at Copperhold. It has Three Wells stamped on the handle and a small bee scratched underneath with a pin. Nobody knows who scratched the bee.

Then everyone argued about what best meant. In the end the mayor said the children would choose. Children are honest, he said, and have the best teeth for it.

So twenty children sat on the steps of the north well, each with a slice of bread. They tasted four honeys. Ours. Rhoda's, from the east road. A dark honey from the hill farm. And one from a man at Vell, who brought it in a boot. The boot was washed. He showed us. Each child put a stone in front of the honey they liked best.

The mayor counted the stones out loud. Ours, 8. Rhoda's, 7. The dark honey, 3. The boot, 2, and both from his own children.

I did not cheer. I stood very still, like a man hit with a bun. Then Ferris cheered for me, and then everybody did. Rhoda said the children had been bribed with bread. The mayor said children are always bribed with bread, and that is why they can be trusted. Rhoda laughed and gave me a jar of hers. I gave her a jar of ours. So we have swapped the prize, and both are happy.

The ladle hangs on the cart now, over Barley's head. Barley looks at it as if he wants to eat it.

The mayor says next year there will be nine prizes. He will need nine ladles. The smith says he can make them, if he is paid in honey. So I have a new customer.

Each fair is bigger than the last. One day it will fill the road to Vell. I say let it.

Tell Tilly I won a ladle. She may stir the soup with it, once.

Your Pell
%%
Letter: Marit to Dace, from the road
Dear Dace,

Your letter found me at the Brown Hen, over a bowl of the soup you recommended. You were right about the soup.

You were right about the beets, too. A mind is tested on strangers. If it only knows what it was drilled on, it may be remembering, not learning. So the tutor brings her own beets, and does not say what they are. It is the only fair way. I did not invent it. We were all taught it.

Let me tell you about the farm, since you asked after it.

Hanna's apprentice is a good one. It sorted my beets into three piles: small, middle and large. It made two mistakes. One was the stone, as you heard. The other was a beet that was cut in half. It put it in the small pile. I would have too. It had never seen half a beet.

I sat down with Hanna after the test and we drew up a small plan. For three weeks, she will put a few half beets and a few odd ones in the sorting. Some broken, some twisted. Not many. Enough that the apprentice meets strange ones. Then, in Melon, I will come back and bring a new set of strangers, and we will see.

You asked what it is like to be a tutor. I will tell you. It is like being a gardener who plants a seed and is not allowed to see the garden for a year. You put in what you can. Then you must wait, and the testing is when you find out.

Hanna's bees came back to visit while I was packing. A few hung around the cart and one walked on my sleeve. I let it. It seemed polite.

I am glad to have met your cousin Hanna and her husband, and I am glad to have your honey. It is very good. I have eaten a third of it already. I will leave the rest for the road.

Yours,
Marit
%%
Letter: Sable to Aunt Vela, song contest
Dear Aunt Vela,

The song contest was held in the square by the harbor wall. We carried benches down from the school and set them in a row. One bench had a loose board. It made a small drum for every person who sat on it.

I sang the song about the mill pond. I sang it too fast at first, because I could see the judge looking at his list. Then I saw that he had dropped his list under the bench, so I slowed down. He was still looking at me. I think he was trying to remember the words.

Neri sang about a fish that stole a copper button. The fish in the song had a fine voice and a very poor sense of taste. It stole the button from a coat, then tried to swallow it. Neri sang the fish's part with her mouth full of bread. Everyone laughed. She nearly laughed too, and missed a line.

The prize went to Old Pell, who sang a net mending song. He had put new words to an old tune, and the words were about his own hands. He said his hands were quick, neat, and handsome. His wife said they were none of those things. She clapped loudest.

I did not win. I got a small jar of honey for singing clearly. I will save it for your visit. If you come before Longday ends, I can sing the song again. I will sing it slower, and I will make the judge sit on the loose bench.

With love,
Sable
%%
Letter: Ruth to Hob, the fish weir
Hob,

Thank you for the planks. I put the new post in myself, with Dell holding the rope and shouting at me the whole time. The post is straight. The weir is not straight, but the weir was never straight. It was bent when we got it.

The fish came back into the weir yesterday, all at once, as if they had been waiting for us. The eel basket is full and so is the trap by the reeds. I have counted nineteen silver fish and one very cross frog. I put the frog back, because it asked me very politely.

I want you to know I am sorry about the goose. I said we should let it go. You said it had already decided it owned the boat. Nobody can argue with a goose that has made its decision.

Tansy came down to the weir to watch. She has been drawing the spiders in the barn for her gran, and she says the weir looks like a big web made of sticks. I think she is right. I told her a web is not for catching fish. She said that depends on the fish.

The rain is coming again. Look at the sky over the marsh tonight, if you have a minute. It has a color I do not like, and I have lived by this marsh all my life.

Ruth
Weir house, Lowmarsh
%%
Letter: Tova to Pell
Dear Pell,

Thank you for the salt and honey. The honey is helping my cough, though I think the cough is from carding wool in a closed room. I have opened the barn door a little, and now the sheep complain that I have made winter worse.

The snow has not stopped. Tam's old cart stands beside the shed with one wheel sunk deep. I tried to pull it free with a rope. The rope pulled me down instead. I was glad nobody saw, except the sheep.

There is a new crack in the north wall of the barn. It is no wider than my finger, but cold air comes through it. I have stuffed it with wool until Bram can mend the stone. He says he will bring mortar when the road is safe. I asked what he means by safe. He said, when the snow is lower than his knee.

People at the inn have been telling stories about the sky. One traveler says the lights were fires far beyond the ridge. Another says they were only falling stars, and that we should stop making a winter tale of every clear night. I saw a pale line once, but I could not tell what it was.

If your cart comes this way again, bring a small sack of oats. The hens have eaten their share, and now they look at me as if I owe them more.

Tova
%%
Letter: Brin to Nessa
Nessa,

Thank you for the honey. It came safe, though the jar had a crack and the straw was wet. It is from Ambrook, I think. It tastes of apples. I have been eating it off the spoon, which my wife says is not a proper use of honey.

The tart went wrong. I am telling you because you will hear it from someone, and it should be from me.

I put the honey in the crust, and I put the crust in the oven too hot. The honey boiled up and ran out over the oven door. The kitchen filled with smoke. My wife opened all the doors. The dog left the house.

What came out was a black thing like a boot. We ate it anyway. It was not good. The honey would have been better on the spoon.

Come to Copperhold when the roads are dry and I will try again. I will use less honey and less heat. I will use the honey you send and not waste it this time.

Brin
%%
The well that ran dry
Notice from the inn of the Long Road, posted by the keeper

The well behind the stable has run dry. We have hauled water from the stream since the third of Leaffall, and it is good water, but it is a walk.

Please use the rain barrels first. There are three, by the stable wall. They are full enough.

The horses drink last, after the people and the pots. If you have a horse of your own, water it at the stream, not here. Wynn, the horse keeper, has done this and says the stream is fine for horses.

The well diggers will come after the fair, when the ground is soft. Until then we make do.

If anyone finds water in the old well by the crossroads, which the farmers say was good in their fathers' time, tell me at the desk. I will pay for the news in bread.

Marda, the Brown Hen
%%
Letter: Cass to Mara
Dear Mara,

I have your note about the brown horse. He is not lame. He has found the soft place by the barn door and means to stay there.

I led him round the yard twice. He walked well until he saw the feed basket. Then he walked very well indeed. I checked his hoof and found a small stone. It is out now.

The windmill squeaked all morning. Tam says it is singing for the harvest. Tam says many things when the wind is loud.

Please send the strong rope back with Pip. The old one is frayed, and I do not trust it with the hay cart.

Your friend,
Cass
%%
Letter: Sage to Dov, the test pages
Dear Dov,
I know you think I am making fuss about nothing, but I want you to hear it from me before the cart goes north. You asked why the clerks at Vell bother with so many pages that nobody reads. I said I did not know. Here is what I found out.
The tutor who taught the stable boy at the Halfway came through in summer and told us all about the drills. He said a mind learns from pages, but only if the pages are good. And a page is only good if it is clean, and if it has not been drilled on before.
So the clerks sort the pages. Every sheet that comes into Vell is read through, copied fair, and checked for spoiled ink, torn corners and the wrong words. The bad ones are set aside. The copies go to the drill box. And then, here is the part that surprised me, a few pages are taken out of every stack and put in a separate box, and no mind is ever allowed to see them until the test.
He called that box the test box. He said the pages in it are the only honest way to know what the mind has learned. If you drill the mind on everything, you cannot tell whether it knows the world or only knows the pages.
So when the clerk is tired and wants to throw out a bad page, he has to think twice. The bad page might be the only copy in the test box. That is why the archive keeps so much. It is not only for the reader. It is for the test.
Come to the inn at the next market. I will buy you the honey cake, and you can tell me I am wrong.
Sage, stable hand, the Halfway
%%
Letter: Wren to Nella
Dear Nella,

The first hard frost has sealed the puddles along the boardwalk. I am glad you left a basket of carrots at the healing house. The sick ones are eating again, and the shed has enough food for the week.

I owe you three emeralds for the wool and the carrots. I have put them in the blue jar by the well. Please count them before you take the jar. Moss thinks the jar is for cough syrup and has marked it twice.

The frogs have found a sunny patch by the boat house. They sit there each morning like small green healers. One patient says they are keeping watch. I have not asked them to take a turn.

With thanks,
Wren
%%
Letter: Mabel to Dace, the lamp glass
Dear Dace,

You asked me to write each month how the Halfway is doing, so the council does not have to ask the carters, who lie.

The relay lamp on the hill above the inn has a crack in its eastern pane. It runs from the top edge to the copper ring, like a river drawn by a child. Ferris the keeper looked at it for an hour, and said the glass was a matter for Vell. Vell says it is a matter for the mayor, since the Halfway is on the Three Wells part of the road. So I am sending it to you.

The lamp still blinks. On wet nights the light is caught by the crack and spreads out in a fan that looks like a bird. The carters call it the Halfway Bird, and take it as a sign that the road is good. I have not corrected them.

Rafe, who sleeps by my hearth, says the new wheel on his cart is holding. He has asked to buy the old map on my wall. I have said no. It is not for sale, and it is not mine to sell.

Please send a glass pane with the next cart. It does not have to be a good one. It only has to keep the wet out. Ferris says he can fit it in an afternoon, if someone holds the ladder. I said the helper from the drill yard can hold it. Ferris says he does not trust a helper with a ladder. I said that is a hard thing to say about a helper that has never dropped anything, and he went red and said nothing, which is his way of agreeing.

With my respects, and my hope that the glass comes before the frost,
Mabel, at the Halfway Inn
%%
Letter: Jem to Orrin
Dear Orrin,

You will laugh at me, but I have had a strange week. Three babies came in a single night at the lower farm, and each one was in a hurry, and each mother said the same thing, which was that she would never do it again. Two of them meant it. The third is already asking for a second.

The Halfway Inn has been full since the lamp went out. Carters come in from the north road at all hours, and the innkeeper has begun to sell candles, which she says is a shame, and then sells more of them. The lamp keeper has written her a letter of apology. She has read it aloud to the whole kitchen, and then she has asked the cook to make him a pie, to show there were no hard feelings.

Dunn, the carter I told you about, took the bet about the lamp and lost, and paid me in honey and bread. He says he has never lost a bet to a midwife before, and he wants it written down. I have written it down.

The lamp was lit again this morning, a little crooked. The keeper says it will be straight by the new pane. I hope so. I am tired of guessing the time by the carters' faces.

Please write back, Orrin. Tell me how your roof is. Tell me if the boys are still climbing the rafters. Tell me you are eating properly, because I can tell from here that you are not.

Your cousin,
Jem
%%
Notice: the north road
By order of the keeper at Northpoint, the north road is open this autumn as in any year. The waymarks are standing and the inns are open. The bridge at the second stream has been mended. Travelers may go as they always have.

Some folk have asked about the lights in the sky. The keeper will say only this. She has watched them and written them down and she does not know what they are. She does not say they are stars. She does not say they are fires. Others have said both, and others have said they were looking at us, and one child said they were the old stories come back. The keeper says these are guesses and none of them is hers.

The keeper asks travelers to keep to the road and to keep their torches lit and to write down anything they see that is strange. She says a thing written down is half understood. She says this often.

The relay is working. Messages go and come as before. The lamp is lit at dusk.

Signed at the tower,
Lantern, keeper's apprentice
for Mira, keeper at Northpoint

P.S. The fox by the tower is not to be fed. This means you.
%%
Letter: Ansel to Tam, the fence line
Dear Tam,
This is about the fence. You know it is about the fence. Please read the whole letter before you say anything, and then say it in the barn, not in front of the children.
On the third of Longnight your big pig went through the gap at the bottom of my hedge, into my carrots, and ate the top half of every row. I counted. There were forty-one rows. Tuck counted them too, and drew forty-one lines in the mud with a stick, one for each row, and then I could not argue.
I did not shout. I want you to know I did not shout. I walked the pig back through the gap, very slowly, and I said things to it that I would not put in a letter.
Yesterday Tuck and I went out to the boundary stone. It was not where it had been. It had moved, I think, about a hand's width toward my side. I looked at it for a long time. Tuck looked at it too. Then Tuck measured the distance from the stone to the corner post of your barn, and the distance from the stone to mine, and drew both numbers in the mud beside the first ones. The numbers did not agree.
I do not think you moved the stone, Tam. I think the frost moved it, or your pig did, or the stone is simply tired of standing in one place. But the stone is where it is, and the hedge is where it is, and I am the one who has to go round the hedge every morning to get to my own well.
I would like the stone put back. I would like the gap filled with something that is not your pig. I would like one of your children to help Tuck do it, because Tuck does not understand why it should do all the work while your children do none.
Here is the other side of it. Last summer you lent me the big cart when mine broke. You did not ask for anything. You sent Pip with it, and Pip brought it back on time, with the wheel greased and a jar of your Ambrook honey tied to the seat. I have never thanked you properly, because I was too proud, and because the honey was very good.
So I am thanking you now, and I am telling you about the stone, and both things are true. You are an untidy man. You leave your boots in the middle of the path and your pig in the middle of my carrots. You also have the best honey on the ridge, and the best cart, and the best apprentice, which is a thing I did not expect to write.
Come round on the first clear day with a spade and a jar. We will put the stone back together, and argue about where it should go, and then eat the honey on bread, which is the only way I know to settle a boundary.
Your neighbor,
Ansel
%%
Letter: Ash to Wren
Dear Wren,

I have finished the map of the farm outside Lowmarsh. The boardwalk bends around the west ditch, then runs past the bean shed and the well. I marked the fish weir with a small cross. I marked the old willow too, though it leans so far over the water that it may not stand another year.

The farmer asked me to draw the path to your healing house wider. He says he is tired of losing a wheel in the mud. I told him a map cannot make a path wider. He said it could if I used a large enough pencil.

I used the large pencil.

There are three new beds behind the house. The family planted carrots in one and potatoes in the other two. They gave me a jar of honey for the work. It is good honey, with a bit of wax at the bottom.

The slow water was low when I came. Frogs sat along the ditch and watched me draw. They have no respect for a person trying to make a straight line.

Ash
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, the birth
Dear Tam,

A girl was born at the north gate bakery last night, in the snow, with Toby holding the lamp and Wenna holding the door. She is called Hazel. She has a loud voice and very small hands, and she has already told the cat what she thinks of it.

The bakery bell rang three times, which Toby says is the sign for a girl.

Your sister, Mira

P.S. Send the wool scarf back when you are done with it. The north wind has opinions.
%%
Letter: Cass to Aunt Rell, the honey jar
Dear Aunt Rell,

The market is over and I am tired in a good way.

I gave the soft cheese to a woman from Three Wells who sells bread. She tasted it and said it was a cheese with character, and she bought the whole wheel to cut on her stall. I have never been so glad of a bad smell.

I sold eleven wheels of hard cheese. I kept one for myself. I set it on the shelf beside your jar of honey, and I have not opened the honey. I am saving it. Nil says I am being silly, and he is right, and I am saving it anyway.

Nil helped at my stall all five days. He is quiet and good at carrying, and he tells the children the sea is cold and the fish are fast and nothing else. I think he is glad to have a thing to do.

The rumors are still rumors. The fish market says one thing and the quay says another. My bees do not care. The honey is good this spring.

Your niece,
Cass
%%
Letter: Odo to Pell
Dear Pell,

The market at Kettle Ridge was crowded today. Your cart came late, but the apples were sound and the honey did not leak. I have put your two empty jars by the ferry post. Take them back before Tam mistakes them for cups.

The spring water is high. I tied the ferry rope twice, and still a branch came down from the ridge and caught it. Pip helped me pull the branch free. He wanted to keep it for the fire. I told him it was wet enough to put out a fire, and he said that was a poor sort of gift.

The tutors from Vell crossed before noon. They carried boxes of pages to the market hall. I heard one say they were taking old records back to the Archive. Another said the reading minds were to learn from them. I do not know how a mind reads a page. I only know the tutors spoke of showing it many pages, then asking it what mark came next.

Come early next market. I will keep the ferry clear for your cart.

Odo
%%
Letter: Corin to Tam
Dear Tam,

The fishing boat came in late, just before the lamp was put out. The crew were cold and tired, but all were well. The wind had pushed them past the usual cove. They stayed there until the water eased. I was glad to see their sail, and gladder to hear the cook complain that they had missed supper.

Pip can keep his honey cake. A boat that comes home late is still a boat that comes home.

Your note about the word lesson was clear. The tutor's first cards are not a list of secret meanings. A mind keeps letters or words as places among many. As it learns, words used in alike ways come to have places close together. Bread and flour may be near because they appear in related lessons. A place is not a tiny drawing of bread. It is a set of numbers in the crystal.

The tutor had the mind sort cards again and again. When it put a word in the wrong place, she moved its weights a little toward the right answer. It grew better by those small changes. She then gave it words it had not seen in the drill. That showed whether the lesson had reached beyond the cards.

Pip wrote that the mind put beetroot near soup. This is not a rule that beetroot must be cooked in soup. It means the words met in similar company in the writing it learned from. A mind can place words near one another and still make a poor guess. The tutors keep a box of unseen cards to find such mistakes.

The sea is quieter now. I mended a loose board on the pier, and the shipwright's apprentice carried the tools back without being asked twice. That is a good kind of learning too.

Tell Pip I will bring him a honey cake when I next come to Kettle Ridge. Do not tell him whether I have won the bet.

Corin
%%
Letter: Pell to Ash
Dear Ash,

I left the sack of wheat at the farm this morning. The cart sank at the gate, so the farmer and I lifted it out by hand. We were both muddy to the knees. The farmer's dog stayed clean by standing on the cart.

I paid for the wheat with emeralds and a basket of apples from Ambrook. The farmer said he would rather have more apples. I said I would rather have a horse that could climb out of mud. We reached no agreement.

I have your map folded in my coat. The marks helped me find the dry side of the ditch. I left three little stones on the gatepost to show the next cart where to turn. If the farmer moves them, I will put them back.

At Lowmarsh, someone told me the cough is from the water. At the inn, someone else said it is from the big ships at Saltreach. Neither person had been near the sick house. The innkeeper says the bread is blamed for every trouble, though nobody has blamed it today.

The weather is warm, and the road is soft. Tell the farmer I will bring his apples next time.

Pell
%%
Letter: Jory to Dace, the gift
Dear Dace,

The cheese came. It is beautiful. It is also huge. My mill hands carried it in on a plank, and then stood around it for a long time, looking.

I have given a quarter to the keeper of the tower, who was kind to us in the storm. I have given a quarter to Dara, the beekeeper, who said it was the best she had ever eaten. A quarter I have kept for the festival. A quarter I have eaten myself, standing in the pantry in my nightshirt, which is not a thing a miller should confess.

The festival went well. The wheel was dressed in flowers and turned slowly all afternoon. The honey race was won by a girl of ten who walked the whole way. Nobody spilled. Everybody was disqualified. We gave her the prize and sent her home with a cake.

Your wife danced twice with me. Once I trod on her foot. She said it was nothing. I think she is a kind woman.

Come again next summer.

Jory
%%
Letter: Pip to Nessa, about a creeper
Dear Tutor Nessa,

Something happened at the drill yard and Tam says I must write and tell you myself.

I was doing the build drill. The one with the wall pattern on the board. I had my row of cobblestone and my row of oak and I was going along fine. Then it got dark and I forgot the torches at the far corner.

A creeper came out of the beetroot field and stood by my wall. I did not hear it because I was counting blocks. Then it blew up.

The wall is mostly gone. There is a hole in the hedge too. Tam came running with a bucket and a torch and said a lot of things. Then he said: Write to Nessa. So I am writing.

The apprentice was standing right there. It did not run. It did not know to run. I think it just kept building until the wall was not there anymore. Tam says that is not the apprentice's fault, it is mine. I think he is right.

Nobody was hurt. A hen was very upset.

I am sorry about the wall. I will build it again and I will keep the torches lit. Tam says the torches are the whole lesson. I think he is right about that too.

Pip
Kettle Ridge
%%
Letter: Dace to Jory
Dear Jory,

The honey arrived. Four jars, wrapped in wool, in a box with straw. Not one broke. Pell must have driven the cart like a man carrying eggs.

I tried a spoonful at once. Then another. The mayor's wife says I must stop, or I will have none for the festival.

Thank you. It is the best gift I have had this year. It tastes of summer, and of your hill.

Dace
%%
Letter: Hanne to Corin, the closed hall
Dear Corin,

You asked what the hall at Vell is like now that the drills have stopped. I have been putting off the answer for a month. The honest answer is long, and I have never been good at short letters.

I was a tutor there for nineteen years. The drill room is at one end of the long low building under the hill. Thirty apprentices can stand in a row there, facing a board with a small field drawn on it in chalk. The tutor calls the order, and the row moves.

When the council stopped paying, the tutors got a month's wages and a letter. The letter was very polite. It said minds of this kind had reached their limit, as shown by Kester's note, and that drills were to end at the close of Thaw.

The teaching room had a tray of crystals, each on its card. "Farm. Build." "Sort. Store." On the last day we put the crystals back in the tray, and nobody said anything. Then the clerk Ferrin came in with his lamp and asked for the cards. I said yes. I hope he has them still.

The apprentices are not sent away. The works take them: carrying, sorting, the sluices, the kilns. Each one does one job, the way it did in the old days, before any of us had a tray of cards. They do nothing else.

There was one I still think about. It was called Quill, a thin iron helper that swept the front steps of the hall every morning and every evening. Nobody had told it to, and nobody told it to stop. When the drills closed, it kept on sweeping. The steps are clean. They are the cleanest steps in Vell.

We tested every mind before it went out. The test box held examples the drills had never used. We counted the right answers in every hundred and wrote the count on the crystal's tag. Never send an untested mind to the fields. I still say it to my niece, who keeps goats now and has never asked me one question about minds.

You said in your last letter that the tutors should have stopped years ago. You were wrong about that, and I am telling you so in ink.

I am not sad, Corin. Do not write back to say I am sad. I am coming to Shingle End at Longday, if you will have me. I am told Dessa's honey cake has improved since the salt. I am teaching the children to count their fish. It is harder than a drill, and much more fun.

Tell Ned I am sorry about the tooth. Tell him the plank was a good plank.

Hanne
%%
Letter: Dace to Bel, what a test is for
Dear Bel,

Thank you for your letter about the test at school. I am glad you were curious, and gladder that you asked me instead of the cat.

You wrote: "Teacher says tests are for finding out what we do not know. But then why do we do them when we know the answer?" That is a very good question, and I will answer it as well as I can.

A test is not for finding out what you do not know. A test is for finding out whether you know it. Those are different things. When you learn your letters, you can copy them from the board. You might think that means you can write. But you cannot tell until the board is gone. Then you try. If you can write them without the board, you know. If you cannot, you were only copying.

That is why we test a mind on something it has never been shown. If we tested it on the very thing it was drilled on, we would learn nothing. It might just remember. When we show it something new, and it does well, we know it has learned.

The tutors have a rule about it. "Never send an untested mind to the fields." It is a good rule. I wrote it on a card and put it on the wall of my office. Every time a farmer asks me for an apprentice, I read it aloud.

In the old days, the halls of the tutors held contests. Each hall sent its best mind, and each mind was given the same unseen drill. The scores were written on a board for everyone to see. It made them honest. A hall could not say its mind was best unless it was.

I think you will like that. Contests where everyone does the same thing, and the winner is the one who really knows. It is fairer than a fair.

Now, news. The wall at Mara's barn has been rebuilt, and the wedding will be in a few weeks. You are invited. Bring your cat. It will not be allowed in, but you may keep it company outside.

I enclose a small prize for your question. It is a fine charcoal stick in a leather case. It is the best I could find.

Your friend,
Dace

P.S. Tell Teacher I said the answer is: both.
%%
Letter: Dace to Jory, what to bring
Dear Jory,

I will come to the festival. I am writing to ask what to bring, because I do not want to arrive empty-handed.

My wife suggests cheese. She says Three Wells cheese is the best in the district, and I would never argue with her on the subject of cheese. I will bring a round of the hard kind, from the cellar of the inn.

I also thought of a barrel of beer, but I am told you have beer at Ambrook. Is this true? It seems unlikely. Everything I have ever drunk there tasted of apples.

If there is anything you need, tell me. A table, a bench, a rope, a ladder. The mayor of Three Wells has more ladders than any man alive.

I look forward to the dance. I will wear my second-best hat. My best hat is on the roof of the school, where the wind took it in spring.

Your friend,
Dace
%%
Letter: Piper to Dell, the wool is in
Dear Dell,
The wool is in. Forty bundles from the Hollow farm, and eleven from the sheep that ran off to the ridge and came back with burrs in them. I have been picking burrs for three days. My fingers look like a hedge.
The carder's bench is by the window at the inn, because the light is good there and Hobb says the travelers like to watch. They do watch. They ask me questions I cannot answer while my hands are full. One of them asked if wool was born wool, or if it was made. I said it was born a sheep and then it was made, which is about as much as I know.
Marda says I am not allowed to sit at the hearth while I card. She says the lint goes in the stew. I say the lint is the best part of the stew. She threw a ladle at me. It was not a hard throw. It was a warm one.
Your honey jar came with the cart. It was not broken. It was not even sticky on the outside, which is more than I can say for the cart. I have put it on the shelf by the window, where the sun can see it. I ate one spoon. It is very good. Tell your mother I said so, and then tell her I ate one spoon only.
Write back soon. Tell me what the weather is at home. Tell me if the orchard is still full of wasps. Tell me if Jory has finally asked Ida about the flour.
Your friend, Piper
Inn on the Long Road, between Ambrook and the Halfway
%%
Letter: Pell to Tilly, the honey
Dear Tilly,

The honey came up the road in a jar tied with red string, as you asked. Ambrook bees, the dark kind. I have kept one jar for you on the cart seat, where nobody can sit on it, because the last carter tried.

The Halfway Inn has new beds, twelve of them, and a stool by the door that is almost level. The innkeeper says the spring carts are late and the roads are soft. I say the road is only soft when you are in a hurry. Sit down, and it dries.

Tell your mother the cart is well. Tell her the mule is a fool, and that I love her more in Thaw than in any other month. Tell the baby the honey is for its teeth. It is not. It is for mine.

Your father,
Pell
%%
Letter: Odo to Dara, the honey order
Dara,

I am the innkeeper at the Halfway Inn, a day south of the Brown Hen. I have heard your honey is the best on the road, and I want to buy some.

I want twelve jars. Six light, six dark, if you have them. I will pay two emeralds a jar, same as at Three Wells market, and I will pay the carter to bring them. I have a hearth here that has not gone out in twenty years, and a riddle board by it, and travelers who like a little honey with their bread.

I have also heard a thing you may want to know. There is a new road being cut east of here, from the Long Road up toward Vell, a shortcut for the carts. They say it will save half a day. They say the council at Vell paid for it and the clerks drew the plan. I do not know if it is true. The clerks draw a great many plans. But the stakes are in the ground and the men are working, so it is at least half true.

I will tell you a rumor, since you will hear it anyway. A family stopped here last week on their way to Saltreach, to take a big ship over the sea. They said the relays have gone quiet in the north, one by one, and nobody knows why. They said it as a fact. The carter who brought them said it was only the snow on the towers, and it happens every long winter, and they were foolish to leave. I do not know which of them was right. I only know the family paid their bill in full and did not look back.

Send the honey when you can. Bring it yourself if you like. The hearth is warm and the beds are soft and the riddles are hard.

Odo
Innkeeper, the Halfway Inn
%%
Letter: Hob to Mira
Dear Mira,

Sella says you asked how the road lamps fare in winter. They fare better than my fingers.

I trim them from the Brown Hen to the Halfway Inn, then on to the waymark by Three Wells. Snow gathers on the glass, so I brush it away with a rag. At each post I check the wick, the oil, and the latch. The latch is the part that tries to defeat me. It is small, stiff, and proud of itself.

The inn is warm, and Sella feeds every traveler who comes in from the cold. She puts a pot of soup near the hearth and a clean cup on the table. Last night a carter slept with his boots on. Sella let him. In the morning she found one boot frozen to the floor. The man pulled hard, and the floorboard came up with it. He helped put it back.

Pell sent a jar of Ambrook honey. Sella says it is for me, but she has put it on the high shelf. I can reach the shelf. I am only waiting for a good reason.

The road is passable to the ridge. Tell Tam to cover his grain and wrap his hands. He says gloves make him slow, but cold hands make him drop things. I have seen both.

If you send a message back, put it with Pell's next load. He comes through before the next frost, unless his cart has learned to walk without him.

Hob
%%
Letter: Toby to Orla
Dear Orla,

You do not know me. I keep bees on a farm outside Copperhold, on the slope where the heather starts. My cousin at Vell copies texts in the archive, and she sent me your question. I have read it eleven times. I am writing because I have a bet on it with my neighbor Rill, and I need to settle the bet.

Rill says a drilled mind can never think. She says it only does again what it was shown, like my bees going back to the same flowers. I say that is thinking, or near enough, because the flowers are never in the same place twice.

Here is what I understood. You say: take a mind and a person, hide which is which, and write letters to both. Let readers try to tell which letter came from the mind and which from the person. If they cannot tell, then what? I say then we must treat them the same. Rill says that proves nothing, because a mind could be trained to copy a person's letters and still have nothing inside it.

So I ask you plain. In your test, are the readers asking the mind and the person the same questions? Is the person allowed to write about anything, or only what the mind was drilled on? If the questions are new, and the mind was never drilled on them, then I think the mind has done something of its own, and I win two jars of honey and Rill's old cart.

The bees are well. The hives are full. I hope this letter finds you before the flowers close.

Toby
%%
Letter: Yarrow to Pell, the roof
Dear Pell,

The Brown Hen roof is on. You will see it when you come up the road. It is the grey one, and it does not leak, and I do not want to hear any remarks about the color.

I know you wanted a red roof. I know you said so at the market, to anyone who would listen. The red slates were not in the cart from Three Wells, and the grey ones were, and a roof that is finished is worth more than a roof that is red.

The loft has a new beam too. The old one sagged so badly that the cat slept in the middle of it, and then one morning the cat was on the floor, and the beam was across the bed. Nobody was hurt. The cat was not even surprised.

Pell, you must stay the night on your next trip. There is a bed in the north room, which is dry. The cat is in the stable, which is dry too, and which she has been told she may not leave until the frost has gone.

I hear your cart is due on the Long Road in four days. Bring the salt, and the good needles, and whatever you have from Vell. Bring a letter from Juna if she has written one. She writes to nobody except you, and I want to know what she says.

Yarrow
%%
Letter: Jory to Nim, the song contest
Dear Nim,

The contest is over, and Ambrook has won, and the eel is famous. I am writing before the fair people leave, so you can hear it from me and not from the bees.

The judges sat on the bench by the mill wheel. There were seven of them: the mayor of Three Wells, two clerks from Vell, the cook from the Halfway Inn, Hob, the Lowmarsh frog-keeper, and a child from the school, who was allowed to vote because she had sung the loudest in the rehearsal.

Three Wells sang the bell, very well. Kettle Ridge sang the windmill, and Tam sang louder than the windmill, which was not in the rules, but was allowed. Saltreach sang the boats. Northpoint sang the wind and the lamp, in a short song made of blinks, which the judges said was the cleverest song, and which the children could not clap to. Lowmarsh sang the frogs, which was not a song but the frogs, and the frogs did very well.

Ambrook sang the eel. The chorus went: The eel is not an eel, the eel is the pond,
The eel is in the water and the water is beyond. The second verse was about the sluice, which nobody may open, and the judges laughed at that, and then went very quiet, and then clapped.

The judges gave Ambrook the first score. Three Wells was second, and Northpoint third, for the lamp.

The prize was a jar of Hob's honey, which the bees took over for the evening, so the whole square stayed out late, eating the bread that Ida gave away free.

Come to the bridge next summer and sing with us. Bring your bowl. You owe me a bill of stew.

Your friend, Jory

P.S. Brin danced. I have seen it, and I am not sure it can be unseen.
%%
Letter: Pell to Marda
Marda,
I am at the Halfway Inn and the road beyond is quiet. Hobb says fewer carts than last year. I count three this week. Last summer I counted twelve.
Did you get my letter from Saltreach? I sent it at the start of Longday. If it never came, tell me, and I will write it all again. It had the price of salt in it, and a joke.
Spiders in the barn here, a great many, and Hobb will not let anyone sweep. He says they are keeping something out. I did not ask what.
Send my regards to Ambrook. Tell the bees I will be back by Reaping.
Pell
%%
Letter: Dace to Pell, the boy home
Dear Pell,

I am writing from the mayor's house, with my feet up and a cup of cider going cold beside me. It has been a long month, and the notice board has had a dreadful week.

You will want to hear about young Barrow. You remember him, the boy with the hoop who ran into the north well last spring. He went to Vell in Reaping to learn his letters, and then he went on to the Oat Hill farm, where his aunt has a bed and a plough. He wrote to his mother twice, and then he did not write at all, and his mother went up to the Archive to ask the clerks whether her son was dead.

Oren checked the book. He found a note from a farm clerk that said Barrow had been sent to help with the flood, and had carried sacks on the river bank for six days straight. He had not been able to send word, since the river had taken the relay line down. The note had not been filed, since it had come by foot.

So Barrow came home on the fifth day of Apple, with a sack over his shoulder and his hair full of mud. His mother saw him from the window of the bakery and ran out in her apron. Ida said it was the first time she has seen Hollis cry without a loaf in his hand.

I was on the square when they met. I had a notice in my hand that I was going to pin on the board. I did not pin it. I held it for a long time, and then I put it in my pocket, because it was about the price of firewood, and nobody needed to read about firewood that day.

The boy has been given a bed in the bakery and a bowl of soup at every meal. He has told everyone who will listen about the flood, the river, the boats, the cows, and the Oat Hill cow who ate a hat. He leaves out the part where he was frightened. Ida says that is how you can tell he is home.

Come up when you can, Pell. Bring the honey. We will set a place for you at the table.

Dace

P.S. The notice I did not pin is still in my coat. It says the north well will be closed for the week. It was a notice that could have waited. Nothing else could.
%%
Letter: Gale to Hesk, the new seam
Hesk,

I am writing this at the kitchen at the mine gate, because my hands are too dirty to hold a pen and Noll is holding it for me. I am telling him the words and he is writing them down. If the spelling is strange, that is Noll.

We struck a new seam this morning on the fourth level. Good copper. Red as a beet and easy to break. The whole wall of it shone when I held up the lamp. We stood there a while and just looked at it. Then Clank started sorting the loose stone into the bins without being told, and we got back to work.

The lift is running slow again. Tell the forge. Or do not tell the forge, tell whoever fixes the lift.

Your apprentice is worth his weight in copper. He carried the water up all day and never once dropped the pail. He also told the sorting shed that a bucket of deep stone was a bucket of coal, and they believed him for a whole hour. We had a laugh about that.

Bring the good lamp oil when you come down. The old oil smokes and stings my eyes.

Gale
The fourth level, Copperhold
%%
Letter: Sorrel to Fen, a sheep found
Sorrel, schoolteacher at Three Wells, writes to Fen the weaver in the autumn. The letter was carried to Fen's door by a child, running.
Dear Fen,
We have found your sheep. She is in the school. I do not know how long she has been there. When the children came in this morning, she was standing at the back of the room, calmly eating the straw from the reading corner.
The children took to her at once. They have named her Class. She has been given a seat. She has not said a word, but the children say she is the best listener they have ever had.
Do come and fetch her, but please do not hurry. We are in the middle of a lesson about wool, and she has been very useful.
Sorrel
%%
Letter: Pell to Bel
Dear Bel,

You asked what the relay mind does with a page. I will try to tell it simply, while I sit at the Brown Hen and wait for my socks to dry.

Imagine a line of letters passing through a small window. The window holds about sixty letters. The mind reads the page one letter at a time. When it reaches a new letter, it looks back at the letters before it that may help. Then it guesses the next letter.

It learned this by reading many pages from the Archive. The tutors show it pages and let it guess. They compare its guess with the next letter on the page. When the guess is wrong, they change the mind a little. After many pages, it gets better at guessing.

It is not a person hiding in the crystal. It is a mind made by drills. Still, some letters from the big relay minds sound so much like a person's that readers cannot tell who wrote them. Orla asked that question long ago. Now people ask it again.

Do not let this stop you from writing your school essay. The archive needs your own words too.

Pell
%%
Letter: Hild to Edda
Edda,
I forgive you for making me sorry. I forgive you slowly.
The mill wheel at Kettle Ridge is mended. It took nine days and six men and an enormous amount of shouting. Tam did most of the shouting. Pip did most of the lifting. The wheel is oak, with new spokes and a new rim, and when it first turned, the whole ridge went quiet, because it did not squeak.
Then it squeaked. Everyone cheered.
The mill keeps the tally board, and Tam wrote on it, in letters a hand high: THE WHEEL TURNS. Under it somebody else wrote: SO DOES TAM'S STOMACH. I will not say who.
I am packing now. I will come on the first cart with the blue thread, the cheese, and a jar of honey for each of your sons. I have a gift for the youngest, a bell for his hat. I hope he does not put it on the cat.
You asked about the mouse in the hat. I think you should have kept the mouse. A mouse that has been in a mayor's hat has stories.
Have the spare bed ready. I snore, but only in the winter.
Hild
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, first snow
Dear Mira,

First snow this morning. It came in sideways from the north and stuck to the wheat stubble, so the whole ridge looks like someone has spilled the flour and not swept it up. The windmill is still turning, which surprised me. It squeaks on every turn, as usual, but the squeak is higher now. Pip says the cold makes the grease thick. I said the grease has been thick since Reaping. Pip did not argue, which means it agrees.

We got the last of the beetroot in before the frost. It came out of the long field in a line of purple heads, and Pip carried the baskets to the barn two at a time, which I told it not to do, and it did anyway, and dropped one, and we ate the one it dropped. Everything in the barn smells of earth and sweet roots now. Sleep in there is good. The hens have moved into the hay loft, which the hens think is a great idea and I have not been able to talk them out of.

The fox came back. I know you will ask. It came to the hen house the night before last, and the hens made a fuss, and the fox made off with nothing, because Pip had shut the little door. Pip was very pleased with itself. Then Pip went to bed, and the fox came back and sat on the fence, looking at the door as if it had lost a bet. I have not told Pip the fox is still out there. It would only want to sit up with it.

The bees are in the hives under the sacks. Every hive has a board on it and a stone on the board. The honey is thick and dark this year, from the late clover, and I have kept you a jar. Do not tell me it is not as good as the Northpoint honey. You have never tasted the Northpoint honey, because it is all in your own jar.

Your brother, who is cold,
Tam

P.S. Winter is short at the top of the ridge. I am told it will be long for you. Keep the lamps lit, and put the good scarf on before you climb.
Kettle Ridge, the farm at the top of the lane
%%
Letter: Ada to Lily
Dear Lily,

Mother says I can write you a long letter if I keep it neat. This is my neatest writing, so please read it slowly.

Yew let us carry the school lantern up the hill. My end was the bottom, and it was heavy, and I did not drop it, not even when the goat came and looked at the glass. Yew said I was very brave and very sensible. I think she meant the goat.

At the top the whole of Copperhold was in the square. There were pipes, and a drum, and a man selling sweet bread from a cart with a red wheel. You can have the next one if you come in Melon. You must bring your own spoon, because the sweet bread is sticky and the cart does not provide spoons.

Hesk was there in a clean shirt. He had soot on his nose anyway. He said our lantern was too bright for a miners' fair. Then he looked at it for a long time, very quiet, and he did not say anything else.

I won a ribbon for my drawing of the mine gate. It is blue. It is not as nice as the lantern's ribbon, but it is mine.

Please write back. Tell me about the river at Three Wells and whether it is still too cold to swim.

Your cousin,
Ada
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, autumn at the tower
Dear Tam,

Autumn has come to Northpoint. The foxes are fat. The nights are long and getting longer.

The relay house here is nearly ready. The quickeners are set in their ring, and the men from Vell keep filling them with ice, which is no trouble at all up here. A boy from the town asked me what the big mind was for, and I said it was so that an apprentice could ask a question and get an answer without a person in between. He thought about that a long while. Then he asked if it could tell him where his dog had got to. I said it could not. He was not surprised.

The wind is up. One pane in the lamp room has a crack, and I have stopped it with wax until the glass man comes. Tell Pip I have not forgotten the beeswax. Tell him the wax from Ambrook is the best for panes. Tell him I said so.

I am well. I am not lonely. I have the lamps and the wind and the boy and his dog, which keeps coming back.

Mira
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the fair test
Dear Mira,

You will not believe what happened at the winter fair in Three Wells, and I am writing it down before Pip tells it wrong.

A tutor came up from Vell with a box of crystals and a table with two curtains. One curtain hid a mind, in its crystal, in the mayor's shed. The other hid Peg, from the bakery, who is fourteen and very serious about it. The tutor's name was Ros. He kept saying Orla's name, which I did not think was fair to Orla.

The test was the old one. Each room got the same letters, one at a time, through a slot in the wall. Each room wrote back. The people in the square would read both answers and say which was the person.

The first letter asked: "What do you do when your friend is sad?" One answer said: "I go and sit with them, and I do not talk for a while. Then I bring a cup of cider and ask what they need." Everyone said that was the person. Peg's voice is a bit like that, when she is not being serious.

The second asked: "What is the capital of the sea?" One answer said: "I do not know which sea you mean." The other said: "The sea has no capital. Ask the fish." Everyone laughed. Ros said both were careful, and that people write like that when they are being careful.

The third asked: "Is it possible for a drilled thing to think?" Then the square went quiet. The first answer said: "I am not certain. I can only tell you what I was taught to say, and I was taught to say I am not certain." The second said: "Yes, if you mean think the way you do. No, if you mean something that was never drilled." The crowd argued for an hour.

Hesk said the first answer was the mind, because a person would never admit that much in front of a crowd. Dace said the second was, because it was too clever by half. Old Brin said both were people, and he had met both kinds at the Kettle Inn. Ros only smiled, and waited.

Then he took the curtains down. In the first room was Peg, with a pie. In the second was the crystal, with a cloth over it. The crowd asked which room had answered the third letter. Ros would not say. He said: "I do not know, and neither do you. That is the question. You cannot tell by reading alone, and that is why we test." Then he packed the box and went down the road to Vell.

I thought it was obvious. The mind is the one that talked too much. Then I thought, no, a mind would talk too little, to be safe. I cannot decide, Mira. What do you think?

Your brother, Tam

P.S. Peg says she is not a crystal. Hesk says she is a little.
%%
Letter: Hob to Tam
Dear Tam,

I found your note under the inn table. It had a beetroot stain on it, so I knew it was yours before I read the name.

The Long Road is hard with frost, but the stones are clear. I trimmed the lamps from the Brown Hen to the Halfway Inn. One post leaned toward the ditch. I packed earth around it, then leaned on it to test the work. It stayed up. I fell down.

Sella says your cart may pass after Longnight. The bridge over the stream is sound, but the north edge is slick. Put straw there if you have any. She will keep two sacks of straw by the inn door.

I found the jar of honey Pell left for me. It is safe. I have only opened it twice, once to taste it and once to make sure the first taste was right.

Please send my cap back with the cart. Sella says it is dry. I do not know why she says this as if it were a surprise.

Hob
%%
Letter: Oda to Lenn, about the melon
Dear Lenn,
You will not believe this. Hal's melon has grown so big that it has pushed the garden gate off its hinges. It is lying in the bean row like a green boat. Hal says it is the finest melon ever grown on the marsh. The bees have found it. The hens have found it. The boy has been sitting on it since breakfast and says it is warm.
I told Hal that a melon the size of a cart is not a melon, it is a problem. He said he would sell it to the Brown Hen and buy the inn a new roof. The Brown Hen has a roof already, and the roof is fine, and I said so. We did not speak until supper.
Now I am sorry I said anything. The melon is very good. It is sweet all the way through, and the seeds are the size of beans. Please come on the next cart and see it before the boy eats the rind.
Also, the cow is better. Wren's boy has been good. Keep the cream for me.
Your sister,
Oda
%%
Letter: Oren to Cass
Dear Cass,

I am writing to every healing house on the roads, and I am sorry it is a letter that asks for so much. Please read it through before you answer.

The council at Vell has sent an order to the Archive. The order is clear. The Archive is to be closed to readers from the start of Melon, and the doors of the hill sealed with wax and the archive seal. I have been told to do it. I have been told to do it carefully.

The order also says: write everything down. Every healer, every keeper, every mill, every school. Write what is known, and what is seen, and what is said by people you trust. Put it on paper and send it in. The council says the Archive should not be the only place where a thing is kept.

So I am asking you, as kindly as I can, to write for us. Your remedies, and how you made them. The illnesses you have seen this spring, and in what houses, and in what order. The water in your well, and whether it has changed. Anything strange that you have been told, with the name of the person who told you. If you are not sure, say so, and say why.

I know this is a great deal to ask of a healer with a full house. I know you have more to do than to sit and write. But I have sat in the copying room for many years, and I have learned that a thing written down in one place is only a thing until the place is closed.

The fox song is still on the shelf by the window, in Bel's hand. I have not moved it. It will stay where it is for a while.

Please write to me when you can. I will read every letter myself.

Oren
Archive clerk, Vell
%%
Letter: Isla to Wren
Dear Wren,

The first frost came early to Reedbank. I put the bean pots near the stove, then forgot the stove was out. The beans are still hard. I shall cook them longer today.

Can you send a jar of mint from the healing house? My throat is sore from calling the hens in. They ignore me unless I have grain. The hens have good sense.

I have saved two warm loaves for you. Please take one before your apprentice Moss finds them. Moss carried the flour sack here yesterday and set it down by the door. I thanked the apprentice. It stood there until I said, "Stay." Then it stayed. I had to ask it to come again.

The boardwalk is slick by the fish weir. I fell on my basket, but the eggs were safe. My pride was not.

Your neighbor,
Isla
%%
Letter: Wren to Moss, at the weir
Dear Moss,

I am writing this on the back porch, with a cup of cold tea and a bad pen, and the whole hamlet is humming in the summer heat. I want to tell you some things before I forget them, because you will be away until Melon, and I will have things to say by then.

First, the news. Your friend the heron is back at the marsh pool. It stands there all day and looks at the water, and I have decided it is a better healer than I am, because it knows when to wait. I have been trying to copy it.

Second, the barn at Aldo's farm. It is full of spiders, and I have written him a long letter about brooms. I shall not repeat it here, but if he asks you, tell him that I meant every word, even the one about the hat.

Third, the shelf of jars. I have moved the willow bark to the top row and put the honey at the bottom. If you do not look, you will take the wrong jar and give a man a headache for a stomachache, or the other way round. So look. Look twice. Then read the label. Then look again. A healer is a person who looks three times.

Fourth, your sister Reed came by and says the baby kicks. It is a boy or a girl or a very strong cat. She is well. I have told her to walk every morning and drink water and sit down when she is tired. She has promised to do two of the three.

Fifth, the cough in the east cottages. It is going, slowly. I have been using the marsh-mint and a little thyme. Do not bring me stories of how the cough is spreading, because it is not. It is only the damp. The damp comes every summer and goes every autumn, and it is not in a hurry.

Sixth, and this is the last: you wrote that the nights at the weir are cold, and that you miss the soup. I have put a jar of it in the parcel with this letter. It is the leek one. Do not open it until you are cold and tired and it is almost dark. Then it will taste like home.

Write to me on the day the pike come up the stream. I want to know what the water was doing.

Your teacher,
Wren
%%
Letter: Sable to Neri, thanks
Dear Neri,

Thank you for lending me the iron hook. It pulled the bent nail from my shutter, and the shutter closes again. The wind rattled it all night before that. I did not sleep well, and the cat slept very well on my feet.

I have made you four small candles for the work shed. They are short because I poured the last of the tallow into them. They burn straight, which is more than I can say for the one I made for myself.

The fishing boat came home after dark yesterday. We had waited on the wall with a lantern. The crew saw it from the water and waved. They had stayed to mend a torn net, then lost an oar in the chop. No one was hurt. They brought back a basket of fish and a long story about the oar.

Please take the candles before your shed gets damp. I wrapped them in wool, but not the good wool. I remember what happened last time.

Your neighbor,
Sable
%%
Notice: mill road, winter
By order of the miller.

The mill road is icy from the bridge to the bend. Grit has been laid down at the bend. Walk your horses slow and do not run.

The mill is working. The wheel was cracked and now the wheel is mended. The new axle is oak and it came from Three Wells and it cost me a horse for a week and a sack of flour. The flour was worth it. The horse was worth it.

Flour is ground every day except the day of rest. Bring your wheat in the morning. Bring your sacks tied. Bring your children if they want to watch the wheel turn, but keep them back from the water.

A hot loaf for anyone who helps dig the ditch clear when the thaw comes.

Ash, miller
%%
Letter: Wat to Sable, the drill at Vell
Dear Sable,

I went to Vell on the cart, as you asked, to see the drill with my own eyes. I will tell you what I saw, in order, so you can explain it to Jeb. He will not believe any of it unless it has numbers.

The drill yard is a square with torches round the edge, and a board on a post with a small field drawn on it. There was a row of minds in crystals on a bench. Each one had a card beside it, and the card showed what it was for.

The tutor took a card from the tray and showed it to the first mind. The card had a sack on it. The mind was asked: where does this go? It put its hand on the pile for sacks. The tutor shook her head. The mind moved its hand to the pile for bolts. Wrong again. The tutor said nothing, but she made a mark in her book, and the card was shown again.

That is the drill. It is the same card, again and again. Nobody says why it works. The tutor says the crystal learns from what it is shown, and each time it is wrong, it changes a little. So it is wrong less each time. She said that is all she knows, and the rest is the crystal's business.

By the end of the morning, the same mind put the sack on the sack pile nine times out of ten. The tutor was pleased. Then she took out a box of cards that the mind had never seen, and gave it the test. It got seven out of ten. She wrote that down, and said it would not go to the mill yet. It must do better on new cards before it goes near a sack.

That is the other rule. Never send an untested mind to the fields. She said it as if she were tired of saying it, and then she said it again.

I asked how many of the four at Vell were still at work. She said only one still does its work, the one by the door, and the others were moved to the stores and the lamp room, where each does the same thing it always did.

I stayed the night at the inn at the bottom of the hill. The fire was good and my feet were good. My head was full of cards.

Your cousin,
Wat
%%
Letter: Mab to Ruel, the copper vein
Dear Ruel,
Your letter came up on the salt cart. Father read it aloud at supper, and then he read the bit about the curve again, because he said it was the first thing he had understood since the harvest.
Here is the news. The copper men found a new vein under the hill past the orchard, where we used to dig for clay. It is green in the rock and bright in the middle. The carter says it is the best vein since the lower shafts at Copperhold were opened. The council sent two men with a measuring rod. They walked round our field three times, and then they went to the Brown Hen to drink.
Now the fox. It came into the hen house on the warm night and took the speckled hen before anybody woke. Father is mending the wall. I told him to use cobblestone, and he said cobblestone is for towns. He used oak. The fox will come back and be cross about it.
The council has a notice up. They will build a relay house at the foot of the hill tower, the big kind, for a mind of the new size. The mayor says it will answer the apprentices on the fields and the carts. Father does not want a mind so near the square. I said a mind is only a crystal in a box. He said that is what worries him.
Write when you can. Eat something green.
Mama
%%
Letter: Nim to Oren, the order
Dear Oren,

You asked how my apprentice Crumb is getting on. I will tell you the truth, because you will find out anyway from the cook.

Crumb carries the jugs and tends the cellar stairs. It knows its eight words, and it knows them well. One busy morning I was with the travelers, and I said to Crumb: "Fetch cider."

Crumb went down the cellar stairs. It came up with a jug. Good.

Then I was still busy, and I said it again, because the table by the hearth wanted more, and I did not say how much. Crumb went down the stairs again. It came up with a barrel. Then it went down again. It brought up every barrel in the cellar, eleven of them, and stacked them in the yard by the well, very neat, one on top of the other.

The travelers sat on the barrels, because the barrels were the only seats left. Everybody agreed the cider was excellent, which it was, because it was the same cider.

When I asked Crumb why it had brought up the whole cellar, it said the word cider was near the word cellar, and the word fetch was near them both. It was not wrong about the places. It was only wrong about how much.

I should have said one jug. I have said one jug every time since. Crumb now says "one jug," and then it stops, and waits for me to say the next thing. It is a good habit for a mind to have, and I think for an innkeeper too.

Your friend, Nim

The cellar is empty and very clean. The cider is in the yard.
%%
Letter: Lise to Nessa
Dear Nessa,

The packet arrived, and we read the lesson by the school window. The children liked the words "grow wild". One asked if numbers could climb out of a crystal and eat the books.

I told them no. The numbers stay in the mind. Each layer adds its work to the stream inside it. The tutors keep the numbers even at each layer, so one layer does not make the next too large or too small.

We tried a small drill with sums written on cards. I asked the children to add two and three, then to add one more. I asked them to keep their voices calm and their marks level. They did better at the sums than at the calm part.

The new road brings dust into the school. I am not complaining. A cart came from Vell today with slate and apples. Before the road, we had to carry both up the hill.

Your friend,
Lise
%%
Letter: Moss to Wren, the ladder
Dear Wren,

We got the bees down. Emmet held the ladder and I held the box. The bees went in the box and I carried them to the new hive by the fence. They are in the hive now and Emmet says they are happy. I do not know how he knows they are happy. He says they sound happy.

When I got back to the healing house I put the honey on the shelf by your jars. I did not eat it. I only opened it to smell it. Then I closed it. Then I opened it again. Then I closed it. I did not eat it.

Reed's mother asked me to bring a cradle to the shed. We built it from oak and it is a little crooked at one end. Emmet says a crooked cradle rocks better. I think he is being kind.

Can I stay one more day at the hives? Emmet is teaching me how to find the queen. She is bigger than the others and she has a spot. I have not found her yet. I will find her.

Moss
%%
Letter: Bryn to Pip
Dear Pip,

Tam says you laughed at the bay horse for shaking his head. He says the horse looked just like you when you found the wrong foot.

I am sure this is not true. I am also sure Tam would say the same thing about me.

The chestnut mare has burrs in her tail. Bring her to the oak hedge after the morning feed. I will hold her and you can brush them out. Do not pull hard. She is patient, but her tail is longer than your arm and she knows it.

Please bring two carrots. One for her, and one for the boy who helps.

Bryn
%%
Letter: Rafe to Hanne, autumn news
Dear Hanne,

Your letter came up the Long Road in a bag of salt. It said Lowmarsh smells of frogs, which I believe, and that your knee is better, which I do not believe. You have never told the truth about your knee. Tell me the truth this time.

News of the road. The new road is cut as far as the ridge, and the stone edge has held through two frosts and one carter. That carter lost a wheel in the second frost and found it in the mayor's garden. He has been the mayor's cousin ever since, and nobody can explain it.

At the Halfway there is a map on the wall by the stair. It is the best thing I have seen since the road was cut. It is drawn in brown ink, with every inn as a little house and every tower as a little square. The Halfway has a bird on its roof. Mabel says the bird was there before her, and I believe her, because the bird is in the same hand as the rest. Nobody bothers to draw a bird in a hurry.

The clerk from Vell wants to copy the map. Mabel is annoyed that the Archive wants to take her wall away. I told her the Archive does not take walls. It copies them, and then gives you back the copy. She said that was a clerk's argument. I said I am a carter, and carters have no arguments, only routes.

The relay lamp on the hill above the inn has a crack in one pane. Ferris the keeper says it is a matter for Vell. The lamp still blinks. In the wet, the light catches on the crack and goes out in a fan, and the carters call it the Halfway Bird. I have not corrected them.

Ysa sends her love. She is at Ambrook for the apple picking. The apples are good, the bees are cross, and Ama has been very kind about the bees. The bridge over the stream has its loose plank back, and Jory says it still moves. The children jump on it. Ysa says it has never once given way, and she is not sure whether to be pleased.

The cart is holding. The wheel I put on in Thaw has settled, and does not squeak, which is more than I can say for the carter behind me. He is a fool, and a good one, and he has promised me a pie from Three Wells, if the pie survives the road.

Hanne, I want to come home for the feast. The road has a way of taking promises and putting them in the ditch, so I have said nothing to anyone. But I think I can be at Lowmarsh by the frost, if the mud lets me. I would like to sit in your kitchen with your bad knee on the stool and listen to you tell me about the frogs.

Keep the bread in the crock. Keep the torch lit by the water gate.

Your brother,
Rafe

P.S. The cheese from Greer came up the road in a box, with a note saying the cow ate the rosettes. I believe that too.
%%
Letter: Hesk to Mira, a gift and a debt
Mira,
This is a short thank-you and a long apology.
The short thank-you is for the lamp oil. It came on the third cart of the winter. It is the good kind, from Saltreach, and it has kept the lamp room at the mine gate bright all month. Everyone says the light is better. I say it is the oil. Bram says it is the lamp. We have agreed to disagree.
The long apology is about the prize. At the Three Wells fair this autumn, the prize for the best copper tool went to the forge at Copperhold. It was Dara's, but she is shy, so she asked me to carry it up on the stage. I did. The mayor handed me a gold ribbon. I said thank you and went down. Then I realized I had taken the ribbon. It was not mine.
I sent it back to Dara. I said I was sorry. She said it was fine. She said the ribbon looked better on me than on the tool.
I wear it now on founding day, with my gold helmet. You will say I should not. I know I should not. It makes me feel proud.
Please do not tell Tam. He will want a ribbon too.
Hesk
%%
Letter: Cob to Wren, the sick cow
Leaffall of 183

Dear Wren,

The first snow came in the night, two days before Frost. The apples on the north trees wear white caps now, and the hens will not come out of the house.

Dumpling has been off her food four days. She sighs at me over the gate. Not sad sighs. Rude ones. I gave her warm mash with honey, as you said. She ate half and gave the rest to the pig.

Scrap held the milk pail steady while I milked. When Dumpling kicked, Scrap stepped back at exactly the right moment. Maybe the cow told it.

There is a lump on her side the size of a potato, and it is hot to touch. Can you send the green salve and the willow bark with the next boat? Should she stay in the barn, or go out on the warm side of the hill? I do not want to move her in the cold.

The hay will not be enough. Rain in Reaping spoiled the top field. If the winter is long, we will count bales like emeralds.

The bees went into their boxes early, all three hives. The bee book says bees in a hurry should be left alone. I have left them alone. They are still in a hurry.

Come up for supper when the path is good. The stew is not good, but there is a lot of it.

Cob
%%
Letter: Sella to Ree
Dear Ree,

The scarf was already full of holes. The horse has improved it.

Thank you for fixing the roof. I heard the rain in your room last Longnight, even from our house. I wondered how you slept. You say you did not sleep, which explains why you heard it too.

The horse is mine until Swarm. Please borrow her again if you need to move stones. She likes work better than standing by the fence. She likes apples best of all, and will search your pockets for them.

I have a small gift for you. It is a wool cap, blue with a green patch. I made the patch from the part of your scarf she did not eat. Wear it on the tower stair. The wind there is rude.

Sella
%%
Letter: Rill to Toby
Toby,

You took my cart in your letter to the tutor. That is not fair. The bet was two jars of honey, not the cart. The cart is my cart. I need it for the beetroot.

You also told the tutor I say a mind can never think. I said no such thing. I said a drilled mind does again what it was shown, and that is not the same as thinking about something new. If a pupil at the school is shown sums all winter and then does a sum she was never shown, we say she learned. Nobody says she thinks. I am not against the minds. I like them. The sorting crystal at the market sorts apples better than I do, and I do not mind, because it does not eat the apples.

But your test is a good test, and I will give you that. If the readers cannot tell the letters apart, then the mind has passed, and I will pay the honey. I keep my word.

One thing, though. Who picks the readers? If the readers are tutors who want the mind to pass, they will guess wrong on purpose. If they are farmers, they will guess by small things, like a letter that says "your brother" and forgets the brother's name. A mind drilled on letters will not forget a name if it was shown it. A person forgets names all the time. That is how you tell.

So my terms: the readers must be plain folk, and nobody tells them what to look for.

Now go and see to the bees. They were swarming over my fence this morning, and if they swarm into my hedge I am keeping them.

Rill
%%
Letter: Cass to Aunt Rell
Dear Aunt Rell,

The spring market opens next week and I have made too much cheese again. Twelve wheels of hard cheese and a soft one I am not sure about. The soft one smells of the shed. I will bring it to the market on my cart and see if anyone wants it.

My neighbor Nil is back from three seasons at sea. He came up the hill yesterday with a cold and a long story. He says the water is the same everywhere. I did not ask him more. He sits by his door now and watches the road.

I will send you a jar of honey from my bees. The first honey of spring is thin and light. Put it on bread.

Your niece,
Cass
%%
Letter: Moss to Clank, the drill
Clank,

A letter, because you cannot read an order that long and I know it.

The order was: bring me some reeds from the boat house. You brought the boat house door. I do not blame you. The keeper laughed so hard he had to sit down. The reeds are behind the boat house, in the water, where the frogs are. Not the door.

The tutor at the relay house says a small mind takes one meaning and holds it, and fetch door is a meaning. So it was not your fault. It was my order. I am learning to say it plain.

Also. There are spiders in the barn by the fish weir. Big ones. I do not want to go in alone. Bring your lamp and your long arms and stand at the door while I sweep. Then we will get the reeds. Then we will get the door back on its hinges before the keeper notices.

Moss
%%
Letter: Willa to her sister, the smoke
Dear Marn,

You asked me in your last letter why I live alone in the woods with a pile of burning logs. It is a fair question. I have asked it myself, mostly on cold nights when the wind blows the smoke into my bed.

Here is the answer. A charcoal pit is a small hill of wood covered in turf and earth, with a few holes to let in air. You light it from the middle. Then you do nothing. That is the art: doing nothing, for four days, with great care. If the air is too much, the wood burns to ash. If the air is too little, the fire dies and the wood stays wood. You walk round and round the pit, listening, and when the smoke goes thin and blue you close the holes.

I cannot explain what I listen for. It is not a sound. It is more like the pit tells me it is happy.

Copperhold buys everything I make. The forge wants it, the kitchen at the mine gate wants it, and Hesk wants it for the lamp room. I sell by the sack and I sell it all. There was a winter when I had nothing left for myself, and I burned a chair.

Come and see it. Come in Deepsnow, when the snow is deep and the pit is the warmest place for a hundred blocks. I will give you a hat, because your head will smell of smoke for a week. I will give you stew. The stew is mostly beetroot, because that is what a charcoal burner can carry.

Mother will not come. She says the smell gets into her good shawl. She is right. It gets into everything. But I would not trade it for a town.

With love, and soot,
Willa
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the zombie
Dear Mira,

A zombie came to the market gate at dawn. It stood there with its arms out, groaning. Pip held the gate shut with both hands, very politely. The zombie groaned at it through the bars. Neither moved. I think they were waiting for me.

Then the sun came over the wall. The zombie began to smoke. It went off down the ridge road, still groaning, like a man who has lost his hat. Old Brin saw it later, sitting in the shade of the north windmill. He says it was nearly polite.

That is the third this spring. Brin says the cold held them back last year. Hanna says the warm brings them out. Sefa says it does not matter so long as the torches are lit. We all lit more torches.

Brin's nephew writes that they are building ships at Saltreach, with room for forty families each. Brin says nobody needs a boat that size for fish.

Keep the torches lit. Write.

Tam
%%
Letter: Pell to Bel, no debt
Dear Bel,

Your emerald came with the next cart. I looked at it for a long time. It is a good green one.

Here is what I did. I put it back in the envelope. I am sending it to you with this letter. The jar was old and had a crack in it already. The cat only finished what the crack began.

A debt is a thing between honest people. You came forward without being asked, and that is worth more than the jar. So the account is closed. Written in my book: Bel, honey jar, paid in honesty.

I am also sending a small new jar. This one is full. It is not for the cat.

Yours,
Pell
%%
Letter: Nessa to Oren, the bet
Dear Oren,
You owe me a loaf. I have the bet written down, and you signed it in your best clerk's hand, so do not pretend you have forgotten.
The bet was that the talking mind at the relay house would say it did not know, within the first ten letters of any question about the sea. You said it would never say so. You said a big mind would always have an answer ready, the way a good fishmonger always has a price.
I have now read its answers for two weeks. It has said I do not know thirty-one times. Eleven of those were about the sea. Four were about the weather at Saltreach, which it could not see. Two were about the boat that went out from the quay last month, which it said it had no record of, and asked us to tell it if we did.
So you owe me a loaf. Bring it to the tutor house on the first warm day. Bring the butter as well. I am tired of the bread from the Archive kitchen. It is too careful.
Nessa
Tutor house, Vell
%%
Letter: Pell to Juna, the hill lamp
Dear Juna,

Tonight they lit the new lamp on the hill between Three Wells and Vell. We watched from Ferris's yard at the edge of town. The lamp blinked, and far off the lamp at Vell blinked back. A boy beside me said, "They are talking." Ferris says the lamps only say all well. I said that is the best thing to say.

The keeper waved from the top, and we all waved back. It was a long way to wave.

Your Pell
%%
Letter: Mab to Oren, the summer books

Dear Oren,

The school books are dry again. We left them open on the copying room tables after the damp night, and the pages have settled flat. I checked each one before the children came. One book had a beetroot mark on the last page. Bel says she did not put it there. I believe her, though she was eating beetroot at the time.

I am writing to ask for another box of plain paper. The children have filled the last one with letters, sums, and drawings of the mill wheel. Neri has promised to bring the box from the store room, if the clerk can spare it. We will use every sheet. Some of the drawings have no wheel at all, only a pond and a very large cat.

The broken wheel is mended now. Its new oak spoke is lighter than the old one, and Jory says he will watch it each morning. I think he means to watch the water too. He says the pond level has not been steady this summer. Neri says the old gate sticks in dry weather, and that is all.

At the school door today, a traveler said the north lights had been seen again. He had heard it from a man at the inn. The man at the inn had heard it from a cart driver. Bel asked whether they were falling stars. I said I did not know. Another traveler said the lamps at Northpoint were clear all night. These things may both be true, or neither.

The children were more interested in the flour that Jory brought for the bread lesson. They learned to sift it without dropping half the bowl on the floor. Halen dropped his share and swept it into a neat pile. We did not use that pile.

Please keep the drawings with the summer class pages. Bel made one of the wheel from the bridge, with the loose plank left out. She says she will draw it again when the pond is full.

Your careful teacher,

Mab
Schoolteacher at Vell
%%
Letter: Isla to Nessa, about the contest
Dear Nessa,

The market was crowded, and the test went well. The bees stayed in the apple tree. Pell sold less fruit than he hoped, but more honey.

Each tutor brought one mind. We gave each the same unseen pages, then kept the answers covered until all were done. The pages were not used in any lesson. That is the point. A mind should answer what it has learned, not repeat a page it remembers.

One mind did poorly. Its tutor did not hide the score. That made the contest useful.

Isla
%%
Letter: Ida to Jory
Jory,

I did not expect a loaf from you at the Three Wells fair. I expected grit. I bought one anyway, because everyone was watching, and I wanted to see your face when I did not buy from the mill.

The bread was good. I am sorry. It was better than good. It had a crust that cracked the right way when I broke it, and the inside was white and soft, and it smelled of the grain and nothing else. I ate half of it on the square, standing by the east well, and the children came round and asked for pieces, and I gave them the rest.

I want to say I was right about the flour. I was right about the flour. But I think I was too hard, and I think I was also a little glad to be hard, because it gave me something to say to people. That is not a fair thing to do to a miller who is sorry.

So here is what I will do. Your flour comes to my shop again from the next market day. I will test it the way I test all flour, which is by hand and with my nose, and if it is clean, I will bake with it. If it is not clean, I will send it back in the same sack. You may keep the sack.

Tell your apprentice the bread was good. Tell it I said so. I do not think it made the bread, but it carried the sacks, and that is a kind of making too.

Ida
Bakery, Three Wells, by the north corner
%%
Letter: Mira to Dilly, the boat
Dear Dilly,
Your uncle Hesk says you are ten, and that you write well, and that you have a question about the sea. I do not live by the sea. I live by the snow. But I keep a relay, and a relay hears a great deal.
Last month a message came up the line from Saltreach in the middle of the night. A fishing boat was late home. It had gone out with six aboard and had not come back by dusk. The harbor master asked every tower to watch the water. We watched for two nights. Lantern climbed the stair every hour and looked out through the glass, until her legs hurt.
On the third dawn the message came: the Heron is in. All six safe. The wind had pushed her far to the east, and she had waited out the weather behind a rock. The crew ate their whole supply of dried fish and part of a net.
I can tell you, from far away in the snow, that a harbor is a place where many people wait. They wait with lamps. They wait with soup. They wait better than anyone I know.
I hope this answers your question about the sea. If it does not, write again.
Your friend at the top of the land,
Mira
%%
Letter: Hesta to Wren
Dear Wren,
Thank you for the medicine for Tuck. He is much better. He is up and out on the boardwalk, and he has already been told off twice for climbing the net posts. He says he is going to be a fisherman like his grandfather. I told him his grandfather fell in the marsh every spring and was pulled out by a goat.
I want to tell you something, because you will understand it better than Dob.
Since the eel business at the market, the whole boardwalk has been talking about the sun and the eels and who is to blame. Some say the stall-keepers should not sell the dark eel at all. Others say the dark eel is the best eel and the fault is in the cold cellars. The council sent a man to look at the cellars, and he came back with a face full of mud and a list of forty names.
I have been thinking about it at night. Tuck did not eat much of the eel. Only one bite. It made him sick for a day and a half. So it was not the eel alone. It was the eel, and the heat, and the long walk from the stall in the sun, and the bite he took at the back of the boat house where the flies are. The matter is not a simple one. I do not think any matter ever is.
Thank you for showing me how to tell a fever from a sunburn. I did not know that before. I think I will teach Tuck, when he is older, the way you taught me. Look at the skin. Look at the eyes. Then ask again tomorrow.
Come and eat with us on Blossom evening. We will have the fish from the weir, not the eel. Tuck wants to thank you himself, and he has been practicing the words all week in front of the cat.
Your friend,
Hesta
%%
Letter: Fen to Sorrel
From Fen, weaver, Three Wells, in autumn, to the schoolteacher Sorrel.
Dear Sorrel,
My brown ewe is gone. I took her to the east well to drink and turned my back to wave at the baker. When I turned again, she was not there. She is a quiet ewe. She does not run.
If your children see a brown sheep with a patch on her left ear, please send them to me. I will pay in thread.
Fen
%%
Letter: Nim to Pell, the summer's end
Dear Pell,

The summer is ending. You can tell by the apples, which are coming down off the trees faster than the carts can take them, and by the light, which is going gold at the edges in the evenings.

The inn is full at the weekends. Travelers come up from the Long Road for the mill and stay for the stew. Madge of the Brown Hen sent me a note saying her stew is better than mine. I sent her one back saying mine is cheaper. We are both right, and we are both pleased.

The hearth is lit. It has been lit all summer, and nobody has let it go out. The riddle board has a new riddle every week now, and this week's is: what has a mouth but cannot eat? A river, the children say. The travelers say the answer is too easy. The children say that is the point of a riddle for children, and the travelers say that is the point of a riddle for travelers, and the riddle says nothing, which is the usual.

Crumb has learned the second line of an order. It says "one jug" and then waits, and I am proud of it, which is an odd thing to be proud of about a mind. Hob says the bees are calmer since the honey jar, and Tuck has taken over the bee smoke, which he holds very seriously, like a sword.

Jory's eel has been sung at every fair since the contest. Brin still dances when he hears it. The sluice is still shut. Nobody has asked why, and nobody has needed to.

The barley is in. The apples are in. The cider is in the cellar, in the right number of jugs. The best of the year is at the table, and the worst is at the bottom of the stairs, where nobody can reach it. I think that is a fair summary of a summer.

Come up when the leaves turn. Bring the ledger, and the bill, and your appetite. Tell Barley the carrots are for him this time, all of them.

Your friend, Nim

P.S. The apples on the old tree have a grey branch this year, and Hob says that means something, and I said that the branch is only old. Hob said that was what he meant.
%%
Letter: Fenn to Wren, after the storm
Dear Wren,

The storm came in off the marsh on the second night of Sowing. It took the hen house roof, the good ladder and most of the sheep wall on the north side. The hens are fine. Mostly. Two of them have decided they will never lay again, out of spite.

The creeper came in with the wind, quietly, the way they do. We heard the boom over the reeds, and the sheep went scattering into the water. Hob ran out in the dark with a torch and found the hole in the wall. Round the hole the stones were black, and the whole place smelled like a burnt pot. The creeper was gone. It had left us a gap the width of a cart and a great deal of grumbling.

Our son Dunstan was on the far side of the wall when it went. He is cut across the arm and bruised along the back, and he is cross about the bruising more than the cut. Can you come up in the morning? I know the road is wet and the bridge is slippery. I will send the cart to the far end.

Now the good news, which I want you to hear before you come. The mind you sent us last winter is on the sheep gate. It counts the flock through the gate at dusk, and in the storm it shut the north gate on time. Every sheep was inside before the wind came over the wall. I stood in the yard with a lamp and watched it do its work, and I could not have done better myself.

The card on its crystal says it was tested on a test box and got ninety-six right in a hundred. I have never understood what the other four were. Is it a trustworthy mind? I am not clever with numbers, and I am not sure you are either, so ask Oren and write me his answer. Tell him it is for a farmer on the marsh edge who wants to know.

Yours, in mud and reeds,
Fenn
%%
Letter: Oren to Pell, first spring
Dear Pell,

Today is the first day of Thaw, and the archive is one day old. You would not believe how many people came up the hill to see the door. The mayor came, and two carters, and a pig that followed the carters and was not invited.

Over the door the first keepers have cut our words: We will keep everything we write.

We have forty-one books, nine shelves, and one cat, who came in with the first box and has not left. Her name is Ink. She sits on the big book by the door.

When you come up the Long Road next time, bring us anything you have written. We will copy it, file it, and give it back.

Your friend, Oren

P.S. Ink says hello. She does not mean you.
%%
Letter: Noll to Ada
Dear Ada,

I am at the Brown Hen with the drill board beside me. I wrapped it in my coat, and the paint stayed on. The keeper has moved my stool near the window. It is the only stool that does not rock.

Lysa says she will carry the old boards to the Archive at Vell. Oren has offered to keep them dry and copy the marks. He is careful with every page, and I think he will be careful with the boards too.

The last lesson I heard from Lysa was about a test. She gave a mind examples it had not seen before. A mind that had only copied the lesson could fail at once. A mind that had learned the rule might do better. She says a fair test keeps tutors honest. There should be a box of unseen cards, and no one should teach from it.

That is good sense. It does not answer how a crystal learns. No one knows why it changes when it is shown an example. It does not say what a new kind of mind may do. It only tells us not to call one small crystal the end of all learning.

I used to think Kester had shut every door. Now I think he shut one door and left the rest unmarked. The council saw a closed hall and thought there was no point in opening another.

The relay keeper has come to look at the lamp. The glass is broken, and the redstone line is loose, but the copper ring is whole. He will take it to the relay house after he finishes his round. He says the lamp may shine again. I hope he is right.

I will come home when the road is clear. Save me a place by the fire, and do not save the stew unless you have added salt.

Noll
%%
Letter: Dace to Pell, my lost letter
Dear Pell,

Did you get my letter? I wrote it at the market on the fourth day of Melon. It was three pages. It was one of the best letters I have written. It had a joke in it, and a sum. I gave it to a boy to carry to you at the Brown Hen. The boy says he gave it to you. You say you did not. One of us is wrong. I think it is the boy. He is eight.

If you did not get it, tell me, and I will write it again. I will not be able to write the joke again. It came to me in the moment. I still remember the sum.

If you did get it and are only teasing me, please write back and say it was good.

Your friend,
Dace, mayor of Three Wells

P.S. I enclose a bun from Ida's. It is a little squashed. It was a good bun when I sealed it.
%%
Letter: Ash to Corin, a borrow
Dear Corin,

I am writing to ask a thing, and I will ask it plainly, because you are at Saltreach and I am at the mill and the road is long.

I need a horse. Only for a week. The mill wheel has a cracked axle and the new oak for it is at Three Wells, and Barley is too old to pull a cart that far now. He stands in the field and watches the hens and I do not have the heart to make him try.

I have heard you keep a grey mare at the yard for hauling timber. I would feed her well and rub her down every night and bring her back with a full belly and a good temper. I will bring her back by the fifth of Frost. I will bring back your harness too, oiled.

If the answer is no, say no and I will borrow from Tam at Kettle Ridge, but do not tell Tam, because he will lend me his cart and his cart squeaks and I will hear about it every turn.

How is the boat? Pell says you have had more advice than nails. Tell the town to come and look at my mill wheel and give advice and I will give them a bucket of flour and a warm place by the fire.

Your friend at the mill,
Ash

P.S. How is the mare with dogs? I have a dog. He is small. He means well.
%%
Letter: Hesk to Willa, the debt
Willa,

I owe you for the winter before last. Eleven emeralds for twenty sacks, and I paid you four and said I would pay the rest after the thaw. Then the thaw came, and the lift broke, and I forgot. I am a man who forgets debts and remembers every pick he ever lost.

Pell passed through on the Long Road yesterday and told me you were asking after your emeralds. He said it kindly. He said it in front of the whole inn. Everyone at the inn now knows I owe Willa seven emeralds. Thank you, Pell.

So here they are. Seven emeralds, in the small leather bag with this letter. Count them. Then count them again. I counted them three times at the mine gate and Clank watched me count, which was not helpful.

I have added one more emerald for the wait. You do not need to take it. But I will not take it back.

The new apprentice came last week, a copper one, with a mind that has been drilled to haul. The mine master named it Rivet, as it is the only word he could think of. It does not talk, which suits the Deep Works. It carries a full cart up the rails and an empty cart down, all shift, and when I say "home" at the end of the day it follows us up the stairs. Old Fenn says it is the first apprentice that never complained about his jokes. Rivet cannot hear them. That is why.

Send me eleven more sacks in Frost. I will pay on the day, in front of Pell if he is there.

Hesk
%%
Letter: Tam to Emmet, a favour
Dear Emmet,

This is Tam at Kettle Ridge. We have not met, but Pell the merchant says you are the man for bees. We have three hives by the flowers at the farm, and they are not doing well. The bees come out and then go back in. There are not many of them. The old hive is quiet.

Pell says you know what to do with a quiet hive. Pell says you once got a whole swarm out of a stone wall with a bowl and a bit of patience. I have patience. I do not have bees that work.

Could you send a word with Pell on his next cart, or come yourself? There is a bed in the barn and there is always soup. Pip will make you a second bowl. Pip makes everyone a second bowl.

I would pay you in beetroot. It is our best thing. The prize beetroot took a ribbon at the fair last Apple. My sister in the north says beetroot is not a fair price. My sister is in the snow and cannot grow anything, so she has opinions.

How is the little one at the ford? Pell says there is a baby.

Tam
Kettle Ridge
%%
Letter: Nera to Cass, more pages
Dear Cass,

Your note helped. I had heard people say Isla had found a way to make any mind clever. That is not what you wrote, and I am glad.

The tutor at the harbor school says the curve is drawn from trials. They grow minds of different sizes and give them different amounts of writing. Then they compare what each mind can do. Isla saw a pattern in those results and drew the curve from it.

A larger crystal alone is not enough. It needs more writing and more time with the writing. If it is fed spoiled pages, it may learn spoiled things. The clerks must take out copies and torn pages, and keep a box of test pages aside. No mind should see those pages during its drills.

You asked me to save the clean paper from the cider labels. I have done so. Your apprentice can use it for practice, but do not let the mind read the words on the backs. Those are old orders, and the meaning is not always clear.

Nera
%%
Letter: Ruby to Sela, the frog race
Dear Sela,
The frog race is on the Blossom fair day, as always. Our boy Dinn has been training his frog for a month. He calls it Admiral. It has never won anything, but Dinn says it is saving itself for the big day.
I want you to bring your stall to the far end of the boardwalk, by the boat house. The good end is by the fish weir, but that is where the old men sit to tell lies. The far end is where the children go to get their sweets. We will do better there.
Also, do not sell any more of the dark eel. The last of it went off in the sun, and Wren's boy got sick from one bite. Wren says it was the eel and not the sun. The sun says it was the eel too, so the matter is closed.
Tell your husband the post for the lamp by the steps is loose. It will fall in the water if someone leans on it. Someone always leans on it.
Ruby
%%
Letter: Nell to Kit
Nell writes from Vell to her grandmother Kit, on the farm outside Copperhold, in the autumn. The visit is done. The friends have gone home. Nell writes to say thank you, and to ask a favor.
Dear Gran,
It was the best visit I have ever had. Maren says so, too. Sedge said that she has not eaten so much pie in her life. She is still full. She told the whole tutor house.
The cave was grand. I did not expect it to be so big. The way the lantern light lit the roof, it looked like the inside of a great bell. Grandfather held the rope, and I went down, and for a moment I was the only person in the world.
I have a request. May I tell my tutor about the cave? She is Nessa, and she is very kind. She asked what we did in the holiday. I said we found a cave under a field. She said, "I would like to see it." I did not know if I could say yes.
I do not think it has anything to do with minds. But Nessa says that any hole in the earth is a thing a tutor likes to see, because it means something to know what is under the ground.
Also, how is the cat? Does she sit in the cave all day? Is she still on your bed at night? Tell her I said she is very clever.
Love,
Nell
P.S. I left a button in the cave. A blue one. If you find it, keep it.
%%
Letter: Rowan to Fen, from the road
Fen,

I got your letter at last. It was at the Brown Hen behind the bar with a tankard ring on it, so I read it slowly and with a beer. The innkeeper says it was there a month and he is sorry. He is always sorry.

I am sorry about the blue beads. I did not know they were money now. I will bring none.

The market was good to me. I sold the honey and the pots and I have orders for two more crates of jars from Ambrook, which is to say from you and Mother, if you will make them. Tell Mother I will pay in emeralds and not in beads.

Barley is well. He is fat and a little rude. He likes apples too much. He ate a hat.

The apprentice at Ambrook is called Peg. She carried a whole crate of pots to a stall and set it down so gently the pots did not knock once. Then she stood by the crate all afternoon with her hands out, waiting for another order. She did not get one. She stayed anyway. People brought her bread and she did not eat it, because nobody had told her to. I gave the bread to a dog.

There is a rumor she was first at the fair to understand a whole sentence. I do not know if that is true. I only know she is patient and she stands very still.

I am coming home by the Long Road in Leaffall. Save me some apples, the bruised ones are fine.

Rowan
%%
Letter: Master Rill to the tutors
Dear tutors,

I am Rill, schoolmaster at Saltreach. I write with a small request and a small gift.

The gift first. A jar of honey from my brother's hives. He keeps bees on the hill above the harbor, and this autumn was a good one for clover. The honey is dark and thick. Please put it in the kitchen at the archive, or give it to the clerks who work late. I am told they work late.

The request. I have a class of eleven children. One of them, Carys, wrote to you. I hope you do not mind. I was telling them how the Archive keeps everything, every letter and every notice and every tally, and she asked whether the Archive would keep her letter too. I said I thought it would. I hope I was right.

We teach reading here, and a little figuring, and the names of the towns on the Long Road. We have a map on the wall. It is old now and the ink is fading, and the road to Vell stops at a place with no name. If you have a newer map, or a clerk who could copy ours, we would be glad of it. We can pay in honey and fish.

We have a relay tower here, above the harbor. The keeper is an old friend. When I was a boy there was no tower, and a letter to Vell went by cart and took a month. Now the keeper blinks and it is there before supper. I do not understand it. I do not need to.

Also, if the tutors ever send an apprentice to Saltreach, the shipwrights would put it to work. They grumble, but they would.

With thanks,
Master Rill
School house, Saltreach
%%
Letter: Tam to Dara
Dara,

Thank you for the honey. Pip and I ate most of it on bread in three days. Pip says it is the best honey in the world and I did not correct her.

The farm is busy. The top field of wheat is in, the beetroot is coming up long and even, and the scarecrow still has its pumpkin head, though the crows have pecked one eye out. I will carve a new one in Apple.

I have a thing to ask you. The bees by the hedge have been strange. Not sick. Just quiet. They come out late and go in early, and some days they do not come out at all. The hives are by the flowers and the flowers are out, so I do not know why. Have your bees been the same? You know bees better than I do. Tell me if I should worry.

There is other strange news. A man came up the ridge road selling cloth, and he said the ships at Saltreach are as long as three boats now, and families are going over the sea and not coming back. He said it like it was a fine thing, an adventure. I did not think it sounded fine. I thought of the cold water and how far it must be to the other side, and I did not like it.

Pip asked me where the ships go. I said I did not know. She said: does anybody know? And I said I did not think so. She thought about it a while and then she went to feed the hens.

Mira writes less than she used to. Her letters are short. She says the nights are long and the sky is busy and the lamp needs a new pane of glass. She does not say more. I do not push her. You know how she is.

Write when you can. Tell me about the bees.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Pell to Odo, a small gift
Dear Odo,

I owe you a proper thanks for carrying my cart through the high water. I have sent a new rope with this letter. It is oak fiber, well twisted, and long enough for the ferry post. It is a gift, not payment. You already charged me for the cart, and I have not forgotten.

Please do not tie it to the old branch. Pip says the branch is still by the landing, though I thought he carried it away. Perhaps he has moved it twice and called that work.

The tutors asked me for market ledgers. I gave them three copies, with the prices left in. I kept the page where I wrote that Tam's carrots were dear. The clerk said the reading mind should see ordinary records too. A ledger has names, sums, and repeated words. The mind may learn that a price often follows an item, or that a letter to a friend begins with a greeting.

It reads a short window, not a whole book at once. What came before can help it guess what comes next. The tutor said the mind does not need a separate rule for every line. It changes its weights as it sees many lines. I do not know what a weight looks like inside a crystal. I do know that seeing one ledger would teach less than seeing many.

If they use my prices, I hope they do not learn to charge by the sack.

Pell
%%
Letter: Zell to Oren
Dear Oren,
You asked how the move went. It went badly, in the usual way. The cart broke a wheel on the hill. The cat got out and had to be fetched from the Archive roof. The dye vats are in the yard, and the neighbors are not sure about them.
I have put a pot of blue by your door. It is thanks for the shelf you lent me. It was a good shelf. It has taken the weight of every skein I own.
A question. A letter was sent to me from the south three weeks ago, and I have not had it. The courier says it was left at the old house. I went back. The new tenant had not seen it. He was kind and a little frightened. He said the street has been quiet. He said the lamps on Lantern Row do not stay lit.
I do not know what to make of it. A dyer deals with colors, not with lamps.
Some of the clerks say the north relays are silent. Some say it is only the weather. Some say they have been told not to say. You are the one I trust to tell me the truth, or at least what you do not know. Write when you can. A short note will do.
Yours in blue,
Zell
%%
Letter: Neri to Sable, about the lamps
Dear Sable,

The candles reached the net shed in good order. Thank you for wrapping them in wool. The wool did not catch fire, because the candles were not lit. I tell you this because you looked worried when I took them.

We use two candles each evening while we mend nets. One sits on the bench and one sits by the door. The door candle has a wide base now. I set it in an old cup, so it no longer leans toward the harbor. It is a wise candle.

I have a request. Could you make six more, all the same height? The crew leaves before dawn to check the outer lines, and the small candles burn down before we finish tying our gear. We can pay with fish, or with a piece of the blue cloth from the sail store. I know you like that cloth for wrapping jars.

The boat that was late last week is home again. They had gone farther along the coast than they meant to. A fog came over the water, and the crew could not see the pier lights. They waited near a low island until it thinned. Then one oar broke, so they took turns rowing with the sound one. They were hungry when they came in, but they brought back a full catch.

My father says they should have turned sooner. The crew says he should come with them next time and show them how. Both sides have been saying this all week. I think they enjoy the argument.

The song contest is still being discussed. Pell claims his song won because it had the best words. His wife says it won because he stood near the honey. Neri says it won because the loose bench kept time. I say it won because we all wanted to hear it again.

Please send the candles with Lio when he comes to the net shed. I will leave the fish in a covered basket by your back step. I will not use the clay jar. It is still under your window, just where Lio put it.

Your friend,
Neri
%%
Letter: Cass to Nil, a jar of honey
Nil,

I am writing to you from my kitchen, which is next to yours, which is silly, but I want to say it properly and not in the doorway.

The honey is yours. The first jar of spring. I have been saving it for something, and I have decided the something is you coming home. Do not argue. It is only honey. Put it on bread.

You have been quiet since you came back. I do not ask you why. But you keep the lamps on the wall, and you watch the boats, and you do not say what you see, and I want you to know that I am glad you are here to see it. Whatever the north is doing, and whether the big ships go or stay, my bees go out every morning and come back, and the cheese needs turning, and the market will come again next spring.

Come and eat at my table on the first of Swarm. I will make the cheese with character, and we will open the honey, and you can tell me one true thing about the sea and I will tell you one true thing about the bees.

Cass
%%
Letter: Wick to Hesk
Dear Hesk,

The wheel is down. I am sorry to tell you that first, because you will want to know it before the rest. The big wheel at the boat house fell into the reeds on the second day of Blossom, when the water came up over the boards at dawn. I was on the bank with the boys and the rope. Nobody was hurt. The wheel was not so lucky.

It is a good wheel. It was oak, from the ridge, and Corin cut it for us himself when we were boys. Its spokes are as thick as my arm. It took four men to haul it out of the reeds with the rope, and the rope broke twice.

We have put the lamps on the bank to keep the frogs off the wood. They do not care for the lamps. They sit on the rim and sing.

Now the business. You asked me last spring to send a loom to the Archive, and I said I would send it with the wheel. The loom is safe. It was on the top floor of the mill, and the water did not reach it. But the boards are wet and the wool is spoiled, and I have had to send the first bolt back to Vell with a note.

Please write and tell me when you are coming to Lowmarsh. Bring the good saw. We will need it.

Wick
Weaver, the mill at Lowmarsh
%%
Letter: Mira to Tova
Dear Tova,

Lantern is warm. She says your mittens are the best kind, because they fit over gloves and leave room for a little mistake in the size. She has worn them each night at the tower. I told her to keep the spare pair dry, and she put them in the lamp room, away from the draft.

The road is not open yet. Snow stands level with the lower rail at the north bridge. The keeper at the little relay says the drift there has a crust strong enough to hold a fox, but not a person. I will not test it. I have enough work at the tower without falling into the stream.

I heard about the cave under your field. Do not go down alone, and do not take a lantern near loose straw. When the snow clears, I will come with Bram and look from the steps. If the air below smells stale, we will turn back. There is no prize for reaching the end of a dark place.

I once heard a miner say that deep stone can hum in the cold. He had worked at Copperhold, and he said the sound came from far below. Another traveler says the ground here is quiet, and that people mistake wind for a voice when they are tired. I cannot tell which story is true. I have heard no hum at Northpoint.

The lights came again last night. They were not ours. That is all I know. Lantern saw them too, then went back to checking the stair lamps. The lamp at the fourth turn had gone low, and she would not leave it so.

Keep wood for the stove, and let the cat have one corner of the wool basket. I know you will say it has claimed the whole basket already.

When the road opens, I will bring tea and a new shovel. Do not dig at the cave before then.

Mira
%%
Letter: Pell to Ama, the new crystals
Dear Ama,

I am writing from the Brown Hen, where the beds are soft and the beer is thin. I will be in Ambrook in ten days with salt, iron and whatever you have written down for me. Do not start the honey without me.

I heard something in Copperhold that you will like, since you always ask me about the tutors. A tutor there called Merle has been growing crystals in layers. Each layer feeds the next, like the floors of a barn. A crystal with one layer can only learn simple sorting. Everyone knew that. It was the first thing a child learned at the tutor house.

Merle found a way round it. When a crystal gives a wrong answer, you do not just scold it. You tell each layer its share of the blame. You start at the answer and pass the blame back, layer by layer, until you reach the first layer. Each layer then moves its weights a little toward the right answer. The next time it is shown the same thing, it leans a little better.

She says it is like a crew of carters on one load. If the load tips, the carter at the back is not the only one to blame, and the carter at the front is not free either. Each one shares the fault and carries a little less next time.

The tutors in the next hall laughed at her. Then they tried it, and their crystals learned hard things too. They say now that the deeper the layers, the more the blame has to travel. Merle is still cross that nobody gave her the credit at the start.

I will bring you a copy of her note. It is in very small writing, so bring your good spectacles.

Pell
%%
Letter: Mira to Dace
Northpoint tower, winter. Mira writes to Dace, mayor of Three Wells, who has been kind to her brother Tam and to the market. It is a more formal letter than most, and Mira did not enjoy writing it.
To Dace, mayor of Three Wells, from Mira, keeper at the Northpoint tower.
Dear Dace,
My brother Tam, at Kettle Ridge, tells me you have settled his quarrel with Brin over the fence. I do not know what you said to them. I did not know a ruling could be so gentle. Tam says you told them the line is fair, and then you paid for the cider.
I want to thank you. I do not say it often. I am a keeper, and keepers deal in short messages: seen, all well, good night. But this deserves more.
It was a poor harvest on the ridge, as you know. The wet spring took a third of the beetroot, and Tam and Brin both were short. A short year makes a long quarrel. You settled it with a pot of cider. I call that wisdom.
I also want to thank you for the market. I know that you keep it open all winter, so that farmers from the hills can sell what they have. This year many of them depended on it. I heard from Pell that the square was full on the first day of Deepsnow, and the bakers ran out of bread.
Here at Northpoint we have snow up to the first stair lamp. The ninety rungs are slick with ice. Lantern has taken to climbing them with a rope tied round his waist, and I have taken to holding the rope. The fox on the roof is well. I feed him.
I enclose a small gift. It is a pot of Hazel's snow cheese, from the market at Northpoint. It will not last long, since it is meant to be eaten. Share it with the council. Or do not.
With thanks, and with respect,
Mira
%%
Letter: Edda to Hild, a thank you
Dear Hild,
The blue thread was perfect. I used it for the collar of a coat for the miller, and he said it was the bluest coat in Copperhold. It is, because there are no other blue coats.
I wanted to thank you properly, and in writing, because when you were here I only said it with my mouth, and my mouth is a poor thing.
You came on a hot day, on the back of a cart, with a bag on your lap and a jar of honey in each hand. You gave me the cheese for Garn, and he ate it, and said it was sharp. Then he ate more. I think he likes sharp.
You worked at my stall for three days. You carded better than I do, and you did not complain about your arms. You sold forty balls of yarn and talked about Pip for most of them. A man bought two just to make you stop.
You slept in the spare bed and snored. I do not mind. The house was quiet before you came. Now it is quiet again, and I miss the snoring.
Let me tell you what I bought at the market, which I would not tell you in the last letter. It was a small clay pot with a lid, painted blue, from a potter from Lowmarsh. It holds nothing. I put it on the shelf. It looks nice.
I have put the twelve emeralds in the roof tin. It is full now. I can mend the east side of the roof before the rains, if the rains come. They have not come yet. It is a hot summer. The sheep are panting and the wool is thin.
Write again soon. Tell Tam that the wheel is a good wheel. Tell Pip to stay out of the ditch.
Edda
%%
Letter: Briar to Lark, the lamps
Dear Lark,

The cold has come down the ridge. I have been made head of the mares, which means I am the one who gets kicked first.

The new helper at the market came on the second of Frost. Yesterday I said bring the lamps. It brought the lamps, and not the oil, which I had not said.

The festival of the lanterns is three nights off. Mother says she will bake honey cakes, now that the mill has flour again. Please come. Bring the good scarf.

Your sister,
Briar
%%
Letter: Gwen to Wren
Dear Wren,

The cough is gone, and I thank you for the jar of honey. I used a little in tea and saved the rest for a sore throat. Tam says I am saving it for a day that may never come.

I am staying at the house on the edge of Kettle Ridge. The fence there has a gap wide enough for a fox. Tam says he will mend it. The hens do not believe him.

People here speak of the great relay house at Vell. One traveler said its mind can answer every letter in the archive. Another said it can read a whole shelf before the lamps are lit. These are tales, not tests. No tutor I know can check a mind that large alone.

I think it is enough that the mind helps the small apprentices answer their orders. Pip has learned to bring bread without bringing the basket too.

Gwen
%%
Letter: Finch to Ada
Dear Ada,

I found the three emeralds and counted them twice, as you did. The small pot is a good hiding place. I nearly put it beside the clay pots I use for nails.

The fish shed roof is holding. I saw the board in your basket. It has a clean mark from the fish, so you may keep both. I will not charge you for the fish, or for the board. I am glad nobody was standing below it.

I will clear the west gutter tomorrow. The leaves have been gathering there since Swarm. I thought the wind would carry them away. The wind seems to have other work.

Please keep the honey jar. I will take a loaf of bread instead, if you have one to spare. I can bring it home without dropping it. I make no promise about eating it before I reach my door.

Finch
%%
Letter: Brin to Hal, the market
Dear Hal,

Your mother says I must write before the next market. I have been talking to the wall. So here it is.

Biscuit got out. She went as far as the market gate and stood there looking at it. She did not go in. Her two lambs stood behind her in a row, looking at it too. Your mother says she was waiting for someone. I say she was waiting for a bun.

The market was smaller this year. I counted. The cheese woman from Three Wells did not come. Her neighbor says she has gone to Saltreach, with her cows. Cows on a ship, Hal. I said I would believe it when I saw it. Then I thought I might see it. The wool trader's stall was shut. The Kettle Inn had four empty beds at market time, which has not happened in my life. The innkeeper says it is the wind. Everybody says it is the wind.

Pell came with a new axle and fewer jars, and sold all of them by noon. He says the honey is going to Saltreach, for the ships. He said it with his hands in his pockets, which is not like Pell.

The mill squeaks worse than ever. Sefa says it is the sails, which are heavy with ribbons. I told her a mill that squeaks is a mill that works. She said that is what I say about my knee.

Tam's Pip carried my seed sacks up the hill. Nobody asked it. Tam says it was only tired of watching me do it.

Now I will ask you a thing, and you may say nothing if you cannot say. A carter at the pie stall says the Archive has been told to seal its doors. He says the order is to write everything down first. Hanna says the carter is a fool and a gossip. Tam says he has heard it too, from the ridge house. The keeper there would not say yes or no. I told them all: I have a son at Vell. So I am asking you. If you cannot say, send nothing. I will know it as well as a letter.

Your mother has made you a scarf. It is very long. She says you will wear it to the Archive. I said you are inside a hill, it is warm. She said that is no reason.

Come home for the shearing, if they let you. Biscuit is waiting. I do not know what for.

Keep warm. Keep the torches lit.

Your father,
Brin
%%
Letter: Dace to Pell, the mended lamp
Dear Pell,

You asked after the lamp. It is mended.

The glass cart came on the fourth day after the storm, as I had hoped, and the glazier from Saltreach set the new pane in a single morning. He is a quiet man who hums while he works. It was a very pleasant tune and I did not ask what it was.

The lamp was lit that evening. Half the town came out to the square to see it. A small boy asked why we were all standing there. I told him: because it was dark, and now it is not. He said that did not seem a good reason to stand in a square. I said: it is the best reason there is.

The tower keeper, young Tobias, has been given a ribbon. He is embarrassed. He says he only tied a cloth. I told him that a cloth in a storm is a great deal.

Also, the road. I know your cart was caught on the far side of the stream. I hope the horse is well. I hear he is called Barley and he is braver than you. The Brown Hen has told me the whole story. I have repeated it at three fairs.

Come to Three Wells when you can. I will give you the best table at the inn, and the loudest storm story, and you may tell it as you like.

Dace
%%
Letter: Mira to Gale
Dear Gale,

The lamp above Saltreach is broken. Salt wind found a crack where the glass meets the copper ring. The keeper has fitted a new pane, but the redstone line still fails when the wind shakes the tower. It should be lit again before the next clear night.

I sent a note by the lower relay to Wren. She will visit your farm when the lamp is steady. Until then, keep clean water by the cow and do not force her to eat. I know that is easy advice from a tower.

Your question about the apprentice is a good one. Test it first with work that is safe to get wrong. Put the hammer and the spade on the bench, then give it one clear order. Do not use the cow, the roof, or a full cart as the test. Nessa says every mind must be tested on pages it has not seen before it gets important work. A field is no place to discover what it has misunderstood.

The small mind does not answer, "I do not know." It must choose one of its learned meanings. The big mind at the relay house can write back in words, though it too is judged by its answers. I do not know why a crystal learns from examples. None of the tutors can tell us that part.

About the first whole sentence, the tales have always disagreed. Nessa remembers one in the drill room at Vell when she was young. Others name Clank, Pip, or Peg at the fair. Perhaps the first was not seen by the person who later wrote it down.

Do not let Pell call your roof a proper roof until the wind has tested it twice.

Mira
%%
Letter: Teague to Oren, a lost letter
Dear Oren,

I wrote to you at the end of Reaping. You did not answer. I thought you were angry with me for leaving Vell. Then Hesk told me the Copperhold post sack was left on the cart. It was found three days later in the stable, under a horse blanket. The horse had been sleeping on it. So I am writing again, and I will keep this one short.

I am a glassblower, as you know, and I live at Copperhold now. The Archive has a book on the old window glass of Saltreach, the blue that does not fade. I saw it on the shelf in the craft hall. I would like a copy of one page, the page with the mix of sand and ash. Not the whole book. Your clerks have enough to copy.

I will pay for the copy in glass. You once said you wanted a lantern pane that did not smoke. I can make you six.

I miss the craft hall. I miss the tea in the third room, which was always too strong. How is the Archive? Is the cat still not allowed in the copying room? Does Ink still sleep on the Saltreach shelf, and does anyone still pretend not to know?

If both letters reach you, please treat the second as the first, and the first as a very old friend who took the long way.

Your friend from the craft hall,
Teague
Copperhold
%%
Notes: the school play at Three Wells
The play was on the twelfth of Blossom, in the school yard, because the school house is too small for all the mothers.

Mistress Ada wrote it. It is called The Frogs and the Well. It has a frog king, six frogs, a bee and a lost cow. It takes half an hour and the frog hats are of green wool, cut and stitched by the children.

Bel is the first frog. She has eleven lines. She has known them since Frost.

The well is a barrel with a cloth over it. The cloth is from the dyer at Copperhold, dyed blue, and it is beautiful, but it is too heavy and it slid off in the middle of the second act. The frogs went on anyway.

The lost cow is two children under a brown blanket. They moo a great deal. Nobody minds.

The bee was meant to buzz. The buzzing child forgot, so the bee was silent, and the frog king said his line to a silent bee, and the mothers laughed, but kindly.

At the end the frogs all say together: We will keep the well clean. Then they bow. Bel bowed so low her hat fell in the barrel.

Afterward there was honey cake and tea. The mayor gave a short speech. It was longer than the play.

Next year, says Mistress Ada, they will do the story of the relay tower. She needs a lamp. She has asked the keeper at Vell if we may borrow one. She has not heard back.
%%
Letter: Mave to Pell, the borrowed horse
Dear Pell,
You may have the grey mare for the autumn road, as you asked. She is steady on the hill but a fool on the bridge. Walk her over the bridge at Saltreach, by the rail, and do not let her see the water. She thinks it is waiting for her.
Her name is Dove. She will answer to Dove if you are quiet, and to nothing if you are not. Feed her the oats from the bin by the door, two handfuls morning and night, and one apple if she has been good. She has been good all summer, so give her two.
Please bring her back by the Leaffall fair. The bees need her cart for the honey, and the children are fond of her. Little Ann has already asked me three times if Dove will come back, and I have said yes, so do not make a liar of me.
The bees are very good this year. The clover on the dry bank was thick, and the heather came late, and the hives are heavy. I have forty jars already, and the rest will come in the next week. I will send you two of the dark ones, for your mother.
Take care on the Long Road. The bridge at the Brown Hen is soft at the edge. Keep to the middle.
Mave
Hives behind the house, the hamlet near Saltreach
%%
Letter: Gorm to Ilse, the hole
Dear Ilse,

You will not believe what Tam's cousin found under his oat field at the edge of the ridge. He was digging a drain, the way you do before the autumn rains, and his spade went down into nothing. The ground just gave way.

He called for his wife and his two boys, and they all came with lanterns. Under the field was a cave. It was dry and round, with a floor of sand as smooth as flour. The walls were pale stone with small stripes of red in them, like the grain in an old oak door.

Nobody went in far at first. Tam's cousin is a cautious man. He lowered a lantern on a rope and called down to the bottom. The echo came back three times before it stopped. Then the boys wanted to go down, so he made them wait for a proper ladder.

I went up last week with two clerks from the archive. We took a box of fine tools and a sheet to write on. The cave goes down about the height of three houses. At the bottom there is a pool of clear water. It is very cold and tastes of stone. We filled a bottle, and it is sitting on my desk now.

The clerks wanted to know if the old people left anything in it. We found nothing except a broken clay bowl and some charred wood, and those may be from a farmer who sheltered from rain a long time ago. Nothing else. No writing. No marks on the walls.

The new road to Kettle Ridge passes just beyond the field, so the cave will be seen by many travelers. I have asked the council to put a stone post by the drain, with a torch and a sign that says "Mind the hole." Tam's cousin says he has already put up a fence. He did it in an afternoon, and his wife says it is the straightest fence in the valley.

Come and see it in the spring. Bring the drawing book. I want your opinion on the stripes.

Gorm
Kettle Ridge, the 157th year of the archive
%%
Letter: Ada to Noll
Dear Noll,

Thank you for writing from the Brown Hen. I am glad the innkeeper found you a dry place. I hope your shoes are dry by now.

You say the visiting tutor carries drill boards. Tell me what is drawn on them. I have only seen the old board in the school house. It shows a field, a ditch, and a little line of oak trees. I thought the marks were for teaching an apprentice to follow a row.

I remember the tutor who came through Three Wells last Apple. She had a copper hand on her helper and a loose strap on her box. She said a mind learns from the examples it is shown. The helper had been shown wheat rows many times. It could tend wheat. It could not sort apples.

I asked whether a crystal could learn two answers. She said the old kind could be moved toward one answer or the other, but not both together. Kester proved that for one kind of crystal. He did not prove that every kind must fail.

I wish the council had heard the difference. Now the tutor house stands dark, and the drill boards are stacked under a cover. The children use the yard to roll hoops. They are careful not to hit the boards.

There is a broken relay lamp by the east road. I found it in the grass on my way home. The glass is cracked, and the little redstone line has come loose. I left it with Dace. He says it belongs to the keeper, though nobody has come to mend it.

Your stew needs salt too. The innkeeper may have a poor hand with salt, but he has a good hand with a blanket.

Ada
%%
Letter: Fen to Sorrel
Fen, weaver, Three Wells. Autumn, near the end. Fen writes to the teacher Sorrel to say thank you for the year, as his shop is quiet and the wool is spun. It is a long letter, and the reader will find it kind.
Dear Sorrel,
It is nearly Longnight. The market is closing for the winter. My loom is quiet, since the wool is spun and the cloth is woven, and I have time to write letters. I have been meaning to write to you.
I want to say how much the year has meant. You gave my ewe a seat. You gave the children a lesson. You gave the fair a ribbon. You let me stand at the back of the school one afternoon and watch you teach. I have not been in a school since I was a boy, and I had forgotten how loud it is.
The fair prize did not matter. I did not win. A ewe from Kettle Ridge did. But I won something else. I won a story. I have told it forty times at the inn, and each time it grows. It has now a flood, a creeper and a wolf. I do not know how the wolf got in.
The ewe is well. She has been shorn for the winter. She looks very different without her coat, thin and surprised. She has asked to be allowed in the house. I have said no. She is a sheep. She has said no.
Here is a gift. I have woven a blanket for the school. It is red and green, the colors of the ribbon. It is long enough for four children to sit on. It is not very good. It is a weaver's gift, and it is made with love.
If a child cries, wrap it in the blanket. If a sheep wanders in, put it on the blanket. If the fire goes out, use it for warmth.
I wish you a good winter. May the stove be warm, and the children quiet, and the roof sound. Write to me when the thaw comes.
Your friend,
Fen
%%
Letter: Ada to Ned
Dear Ned,
I know you think the stall by the boardwalk is too close to the water. I know you think a stall should sit on dry boards. But the board men said the dry boards are full this spring, and the water boards have room, and the water boards have the best torch on the corner. So I took it.
I have sold four baskets of reed mats and one very big hat. The hat was a joke, and the man who bought it is a joker too. He wore it all the way to the fish weir and then he gave it to his dog.
The rain came in at noon and I had to hold a sheet over the reed mats for an hour. A boatman's son held the other corner. He was a nice boy with a broken tooth and no interest in the sheet. We got soaked together, which I suppose is what a market is for.
Please bring the other pole when you come. The one I have is short, and I have had to stand on a box to reach the top sheet. The customers are laughing at me. Not unkindly, but they are laughing.
Your loving wife,
Ada
%%
Letter: Cob to Oren, my first market
Dear Oren,

You asked me to write down what happened at the market, so that I will remember it, and so that you will know which parts were my fault.

You gave me a list. Paper, six crates. Wax, four blocks. Quills, forty. I read the list three times on the road. I want it noted that I read it three times.

The paper seller, Hob, is a large man with a small voice. I asked for six crates. He said, six crates of what? I said paper. He said, reed or rag? I did not know there were two. I said both. He said, that is twelve crates. I said no, six, half and half. He thought about it. He gave me three of each, and I paid, and I was very proud.

At the quill stall I bought forty quills. They were cheap. I did not ask why. On the road home I found out. Thirty-one were cut for the left hand.

I am sorry. I have brought you three crates of reed paper, three of rag, and thirty-one left-handed quills. Tomorrow I will take the quills back, and I will be firm. I will say, I am Cob of the Archive. He will say, I know. You were here yesterday.

Your clerk,
Cob
%%
Letter: Orla to Dara, the long night
Dear Dara,

Thank you for the socks. They are too long in the foot, which means they were made by someone who has never had feet of her own. I am wearing them anyway, and so is the cat, who has taken the left one for her bed.

Now the news from the house at the edge of the mine. Last week the copper cart came in at dusk with its wheel off, and the men carried the copper up the hill by hand. They sang the whole way, which I did not know they could do in the cold. They sang the one about the lamp boy who fell in the well, which is not a sad song, though it sounds like one.

The school here put on a play for the midwinter. It was called The Long Night. There was a wolf, a lamb, a miner with a lamp, and a baker who was not in the play but came anyway, to sell pies in the back row. The wolf was Dunny, who growled the whole time. The lamb ran off to the mine gate twice. The miner forgot his line and said Good night, Ida, instead, which made the baker cry.

The Halfway Inn sent us a barrel of soup on the cart. Nobody knows why the innkeeper sent it, but it was very good, and the carter said it had been made by a man who loved his own stove.

Our apprentice Brim has been given a new word this week, and it is not a helpful one. The word is stay. It means to stand very still by the door until someone comes back. Brim has taken it with great feeling. It stood by the lift door for a whole afternoon, so still that the children put their own hats on its shoulders. Hesk says that is what staying looks like, and that a good apprentice does not complain. I think it is what the apprentice has been taught, and that it is happy about it.

The count board is full. We had nine new carts of coal in one week, and the sorting shed has run out of bins. The men are making more bins from the old barrels. It is slow work, but the barrels do not mind.

Ama sent a jar of honey up the road for the midwinter. It sits on the table, and nobody may touch it, because Dunny has been appointed to watch it.

I have been thinking about the wall. I was on the wall at Copperhold for thirty years, walking the top in every weather, watching the road. I used to think a wall was for keeping things out. I think now it is only for keeping the place where you are. A wall is a kind of sentence. It says, here, this is where we are.

Write back in the spring. Tell me whether the new boat at Saltreach is red yet. Tell me whether the children in Vell are still singing the long song, and whether anyone has written it down.

Your loving sister,
Orla

Post: the cart goes down on the first of Thaw. It may be late. Everything is late this winter, except the wolf."
%%
Letter: Thane to his brother
Dear Ruen,

Do not come up to the farm this summer. There is no harvest to come up for. The wheat has rotted in the wet. The beetroot is small and bitter. The potatoes came up black in the middle, and when you cut them the smell was like a cellar left shut.

I went out to the long field yesterday with the scythe, and the stalks did not even bend. They just broke. I counted the sheaves. There are eleven. Last year there were three hundred.

Father used to say a poor year is only a year. You plant again, and the next is better. I say it to myself at night and it does not help. I think of the bread we will not have, and the bread the children will not have, and the carts that will come up the road in autumn and find nothing to carry.

The steward at the Halfway says the grain will come up from the south, on the carts, and the price will be fair. He says it every year. This year the price is not fair. The grain is two emeralds the sack, and nobody has two emeralds to spare.

Please send what you can. Do not send coins. Send honey, if the bees have been kind, or apples from the old trees, or anything that keeps. We will be living on the stores until the spring.

I am not writing to frighten you. I am writing because I need someone to tell the truth to, and you are the only one who will not say it will be all right.

Thane
The farm at the top of the lane, Copperhold road
%%
Letter: Yarrow to Ama, the bet
Dear Ama,

You owe me a jar of dark honey. You bet that the Brown Hen would not get its roof on before the first frost. I bet that it would. The roof went on this morning, two days early, and the frost is not due until next week. So the honey is mine.

Do not send the light kind. I know you have plenty. I want the dark, the one you keep in the cool store behind the apples, the one you say is for your mother.

Your mother can have a pot of the light. She will not know the difference, and neither will the roof.

The men did it well. Hal did the far side with his own hands, and swore at every nail. Juna carried the slates up the ladder all morning, one by one, and did not drop a single one. Old Brin sat on the wall and told them they were doing it wrong, and then he came down and did it right. He would not take any credit. He said it was the apprentice that carried the bundles, and that was true. It stood at the foot of the ladder and passed the slates up as fast as Juna could take them. It did not look up once. It only watched the ladder.

I owe Hal a pie. Tell him it is coming, and tell him the pie is cherry, and that he will have to wait for the cherries.

Your friend, and a very cold innkeeper,
Yarrow
%%
Letter: Corin to Idrin, Kester's note
Dear Idrin,

You sent me the copy of Kester's note, and the clerks at Vell are reading it wrong. You wrote that they say it proves minds are a waste of money. I am a shipwright, not a tutor, so correct me where I am wrong.

Kester says a simple crystal sorts by drawing one line. Yes on one side of the line, no on the other. That is all one layer of weights can do. It is a single cut across a board.

Now take four pegs and set them at the corners of a square board. Put two yes pegs on opposite corners, and two no pegs on the other two. The rule is "one or the other, but not both". A yes when exactly one of the two lamps is lit, and a no when both are lit or both are dark.

Try to cut the board with one straight line so the yes pegs sit on one side and the no pegs on the other. You cannot. Every straight cut leaves some peg on the wrong side. Kester is right about that. One line will not do it.

I tried it with chalk on the shop floor, with my youngest, Sable, who is nine. She got it in about a minute. She drew a bent line, going round one of the pegs. So a mind could do it, if its line could bend. But a simple crystal cannot bend. Kester wrote that down, and he is right about the simple crystal. He said nothing about any other kind, because nobody has built one.

So the council reads "never", and stops paying. That is the part I do not follow. A shipwright would not give up on boats because the first boat leaked. He would try another plank.

Maybe two crystals could work together and bend the line between them. Nobody here knows how to drill two at once. Maybe nobody can.

I am sending the chalk drawing with this letter. Keep it. Do not let a clerk file it.

Your friend,
Corin
%%
Letter: Wynn to Rill
Dear Rill,

Good questions. I will answer them both, and I will answer the second one first because it is easier.

The soft cheese has a rind because of how it is made. It is salted and set slow, and a skin grows on the outside as it dries. That skin is the rind. It is part of the cheese and you can eat it. Some folk cut it off. Those folk are wrong, but they are allowed.

The pressed cheese is made in a big press that squeezes the water out. There is no time for a skin to grow, because it is pressed hard and dry and wrapped in cloth. So it has no rind. It has a crust, but a crust is not a rind. I know they sound the same. They are not.

Now the honey. The bees do not make the cheese. That is important. I want you to tell your friend this. The bees make the honey. I keep the bees by the hives on the hill. I take the honey out of the hives and put a little into the cheese. A little, not a lot. If you use too much the cheese does not set and it turns to a mess. I learned that the hard way.

So the bees help make the honey cheese, but they do not make the cheese. They would be very bad at it. They are good at honey and they should stick to that.

I am glad you are making the goat song longer. I am not worried about people getting bored, as long as the goat keeps doing things and you keep making the noise. But I will give you one piece of advice, from someone who has sung a few songs. End with the hat. The hat is the best joke. Do not bury the hat in the middle. Save the hat for the end.

And share the honey next time. Your grandmother is right about most things. Not the oven. The honey.

Your friend,
Wynn
Cheesemaker
%%
Letter: Hesk to Wick
Wick,

Your goat is in my yard. It has eaten my beans. It has eaten the cloth off the line. It has eaten the bucket I left by the gate, and it has stood on the roof of my shed, and it is now sitting on my step, looking at me with the face of a goat that owns the mine.

I am not angry. I am only telling you where your goat is, so that you can come and get it before it eats the mine hall.

The goat came up the Copperhold road this morning. It walked straight through the gate of the mine yard, past the sorting shed, and into the tool store. It tried to eat a helmet. Bram got it out with a pole. It went up the ladder to the forge and sat on the roof. Clank went up after it and brought it down, very gently, by the collar. It was not grateful.

The goat has a red collar and a bell. The bell rings when it moves. I can hear it from the count board. I am sure the whole mine hears it too.

Please come before the bell rings again, Wick. Bring a rope. Bring your patience. And bring the good turnips the goat likes, because it will not come for anything else.

Hesk
Copperhold, the mine gate
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, the long nights
Tam,

Northpoint is buried. The snow came in Longnight and has not gone to see how we are doing. It is up to the second window. From the lamp room I can see sky through the top panes and nothing else.

You always want news and never send yours, so here is mine.

The lamp at the top of the tower is lit every night. The oil came on the last cart, one barrel, and the council says it is the last until the road opens. The road does not open in Frost. It does not open in Longnight. It might open in Sowing if the snow is kind. The snow has never been kind here.

The copper ring round the lamp room has gone green in the cold, and so has the roof. The council says there is no copper to spare. So the roof waits. It is good at waiting.

Lantern keeps the stair lamps. There is a lamp at every turn of the stair, and at the top a ladder of ninety rungs, which I counted again this morning. Ninety. Lantern climbs each evening and lights each lamp. It climbs slowly. It never gets tired, and I am tired of watching it. I watch it anyway.

There is no tutor coming. The hall at Vell has shut, and I hear the tutors are walking home with their boards under their arms. So I teach Lantern the lamps myself. I stand at the bottom with the torch and say, light the third lamp. It lights the third lamp. I say, light the fifth. It lights the fifth. When it is right I say good. It does not know what good means. I say it anyway, the way you pat a dog.

Last week Lantern lit the lamp at the wrong turn. I climbed the whole flight in the dark to say so, which was a silly thing to do at my age. Lantern did not mind. It lit the right lamp after that, as if it had never done the wrong one.

The nights here are very long. In the evenings I talk and Lantern lights the lamps. That is how a tower keeps its keeper company.

The snow has been in my boots since Longnight. The boots are thinking about leaving. I have told them they cannot go until the spring.

Write to me. One sentence will do. A drawing of a pig will do. A letter with one line of news in it is worth more than a page from the council.

Keep warm. Do not stand near the ditch.

Mira
Northpoint relay tower, the top room
%%
Letter: Toby to Mira, news of the farm
Mira,

Thank you for the letter. I am glad Northpoint is warm enough to melt the ice off your stair lamp. Keep the torches round the foot. The nights are still long up there.

Here is our news. The bees swarmed on the second of Sowing, right onto the fence post, the same post as last year. I shook them into a new hive and they settled in a day. The honey from the old hive is dark this year, from the heather. Sweet, but it tastes of the hill. Rill says it is the best yet. Rill says that every year.

The apple trees flowered late but full. The pig had four piglets. One is small and follows me everywhere, and I have not named it because we do not name the ones we eat. The big mind in the relay house at Copperhold came last month. They say it is the size of a loaf and it sits in a ring of quickeners kept cool with water. Clank the miner's apprentice asked it something through the relay. The answer came back the same day.

I read the question Orla of Vell wrote, the one about a hidden mind and a person answering letters, and readers guessing which is which. I do not know what to think. I told Rill I would ask you, since you keep a relay and hear everything. What do the folk at Northpoint say of it? Half of them say a mind that reads letters has passed the test already. The other half say it has only learned to copy.

Write soon, and stay warm. Tell Lantern to keep the lamp trimmed.

Toby
%%
Letter: Oren to Nessa
Dear Nessa,

You missed the song contest, so I am writing it down before the details go. A clerk should record everything, and this is worth recording.

It was held in the front hall of the archive, because it was raining and the square at Three Wells was a river. Dace said it was the best rain we have had. The mayor was in the front row and fell asleep in the second song.

The winner was a girl from Ambrook, about fourteen, who sang about the bees going out in Blossom and coming home heavy. She had a jar of honey for a prize and she gave a spoonful to everyone in the hall. There was a great deal of coughing. Honey is not meant for spoons.

Second place was a man from the Long Road who sang about the Halfway Inn and the riddle board. He forgot the last verse and the whole hall sang it for him. Even the sleepy mayor woke up for that.

There was one quarrel. A baker from Three Wells said the Ambrook girl had not written her own song. The girl said she had, and her grandmother said she had, and the grandmother is very tall, so the baker said no more.

I have filed the words to the honey song. The girl wrote them out for me. She spelled Blossom wrong twice.

I hope the drills go well. Are the apprentices behaving? Do not answer that. I know they are.

Oren
%%
Letter: Nessa to Odo
Dear Odo,

Thank you for writing down the contest songs. The tutors brought them to Vell, and the clerks made copies for the great drills. One copy had a wet corner, but the words were clear. We dried it by the copying room window.

The reading mind sees a small piece of a page at a time. It uses the marks before that piece to guess what comes next. It can learn that a greeting often comes before a name, or that a song returns to the same line. It does not know the ferry or the singer. It has found patterns in the writing.

The tutors give it many pages because one page teaches little. They take away spoiled copies and repeated pages where they can. They also keep a box of pages for tests. No mind is drilled on those pages. Then the tutors can see whether it learned to read patterns, rather than repeat lines it has already seen.

We cannot tell you whose letters were gathered first. Some say the clerks asked every town. Others say they began with the Archive shelves. The old records do not agree. The clerks have kept the lists, but the lists are not all alike.

I will ask the judges to sit under the barn roof next spring. Your board will be useful.

With thanks,
Nessa
%%
Letter: Bry to Gale, the well ran dry
Dear Gale,

The well in the yard ran dry on the ninth of Longday. Not low. Dry. I dropped the bucket and it hit the bottom with a clang, and there was no water in it at all, only a little mud and one very surprised frog.

So now we walk to the town well with the cart. It is a long walk in the heat. The horse is not pleased. I am not pleased. The frog has moved into the rain barrel and seems happier there.

Everyone says the same thing: it will fill again in Leaffall. I hope everyone is right. In the meantime we are being careful with water. No more long washing of the floors. No more filling the trough to the top. The chickens have noticed and are cross about it.

Mum says the well never ran dry when she was a girl. Then she says she is sure it did once, she just cannot remember. That is Mum.

The heat is bad this summer. The wheat is standing tall but it is thirsty. We water it from the cart in the evening, and the water goes down into the dust so fast you would think the ground was drinking it.

How is the mine? Is it cool down there? I am jealous of the cool.

Write soon. Send news. Send rain, if you can find any.

Bry
The house by the yard
%%
Letter: Merle to her father
Dear Father,

You asked why I am still at Lowmarsh. I will tell you plainly.

The marsh stone is not like Copperhold stone. It is soft and wet and it splits along its grain if you look at it wrong. The old marsh wall was failing. I cut new posts and set them with a footing of cobblestone packed with clay. The water will not move them now.

The folk here are kind but they talk about the grey cough. Wren the healer has a house with high shelves of jars. She lets me read the labels. She says half of them are wrong and she means to fix them.

I have not forgotten the trade you taught me. I keep my chisels dry. I am eating.

Your daughter,
Merle
%%
Letter: Oren to Pell
Dear Pell,

Thank you for the news. I hope the well fills again when the autumn rain comes. Until then, carry water from the stream in clean pails. Do not drink from the mine ditch.

The cat may be right about the grain shed. Mice do not need to be invited. Still, tell the farmer to keep the sacks raised from the floor. A dry store saves more grain than a brave cat.

At the Archive, we have begun copying the tutors' notes about the reading minds. One page says the mind reads one letter, then the next, using what came before. Its window is about sixty letters wide. The note is clear, but I had to read it twice.

Your apples arrived in good order. I put one by the copying room window.

Oren
%%
Letter: Hobb to Pell, the stool
Pell,

You owe me for a stool. One stool, by the door, which you sat on last Blossom and then declared the finest stool on the road. The leg went with a crack you could hear in the kitchen. I have had it mended three times. It still rocks like a boat, and the carters ask me whether it is a new kind of seat.

You also owe me for the second bowls. You had six. The bowls are not free because you say they are small. The bowls are the same size as anyone's, and the soup is the same price, and you know this, because you have written the price on my board yourself.

I have sent the honey back. You will say I am cross about the honey. I am not cross about the honey. The honey is good, and the jar is very nice, and the red string is a fine touch. I am cross that you tied it to the cart seat, which is where the mule sits to eat.

If you come through in summer, bring the stool money. Bring a second stool, if you can find a straight one. I will put the first stool in the yard and let the carters argue about it.

Hobb, innkeeper, Halfway
%%
Letter: Kester to Lark, the market day
Dear Lark,

I promised to tell you the whole market day in order, so here it is, from before the sun to after the lamps. You were in bed with a cold and missed all of it, so you can read this on the step and feel very sorry for yourself.

Before the sun. The carts start up the hill while it is still grey. You can hear the wheels on the stones of the lower road. The first is always the cheese cart from Kettle Ridge, and the cheesemaker's dog sleeps on top of the cheeses, and nobody has ever asked him to move.

Dawn. The bakers light the ovens at the bottom of the market, under the oak. The smell goes up the hill and wakes the clerks. Oren says the smell is the only thing the Archive has never managed to file.

Morning. The fish carts come in from Saltreach. They are wet, and so is everybody near them. The fish seller shouted the price of cod across the square, four emeralds the barrel, which Father says is robbery. He bought two barrels anyway, and then he was sorry about the smell in the cart all the way home.

The honey stall. The bees came, as they do every Melon. They sat on the jars and on the cloth. Brin tied the cloth, then untied it, then sat down on a barrel with his face in his hands. The jars are labeled in red now. Brin says the red is for people who do not trust his handwriting, and that includes everybody, including Brin.

Midday. The song contest under the oak. I have written to Bel about it, so I will say only that someone threw a melon rind at the tutor, and it landed in the bread basket, and the baker has asked for it back.

The lower road. A cart with a loose wheel crossed the new bridge and came out the other side without losing anything. The carter bought everyone a drink, which is not what the rail is for.

Late afternoon. Oren let me stand in the doorway of the copying room. From the big window you can see the whole town, the carts going out on the Long Road, the windmill on Kettle Ridge, and the oak at the bottom of the hill with its shade pulled in. He says it is a town that writes everything down, and so it is the best window in the world for seeing a day.

Dusk. The lamps are lit in the square. Each one is lit from a taper by a child with a careful hand. The traveler from the Long Road plays a pipe, badly, and everybody claps for him, because he has come a very long way and he is going to play whether they clap or not.

Night. Father walks us home. The torches stand on their posts along the road, one every twelve blocks, and we count them, and I got to nineteen before I fell asleep on his shoulder. Mother says the day was very long and very good. We say yes. Then the dog wakes up on the cheese cart and walks home across the top of the load, and nobody asks him to move.

Your friend, who has written it all down,
Kester
%%
Letter: Noll to Ada
Dear Ada,

I am at the Brown Hen. The rain came hard on the Long Road, so I stopped before my shoes filled with mud.

The innkeeper gave me a dry place by the hearth. I paid with two emeralds. One was so small he weighed it twice.

A visiting tutor from Vell is here. Her name is Lysa. She carries a box of old drill boards. She says the tutors have little work now. The council stopped paying them, and most of the halls are shut.

I asked her if the old crystal could learn two things at once. She said no. It could learn one answer or the other, but not both. Kester wrote that down, and the councils believed him.

I am not sure why they thought that meant no mind could ever do more. Perhaps they were tired of paying for lessons.

The fire is warm. I wish you were here to tell the innkeeper his stew needs salt.

Noll
%%
Letter: Ulla to Oren, the gate
Dear Oren,

You asked me to write the business of the gate in full, for the book, because you were not there and the clerks will ask. So here it is, as plainly as I can make it.

On the third night of Melon, after the lamps were lit in the front hall, there was a knock at the great gate. Three knocks, slow, and then a long scrape against the wood. I thought it was a cart. Then I thought it was Wenna's horse, which likes to lean on things. Then I looked through the grille and saw a zombie standing in the lane, very still, with one arm up against the door.

I did what the rule says. I did not open the gate. I held the lamp from the wall up to the grille, and the zombie did not like the light. It moved back a step. It did not go away.

Then Pell came up the hill with his cart and a torch. He shouted at it, and it shuffled sideways. Then Dell, the wood cutter, came down from the road with a spade. Ned came out of the copying room with a bucket. Between the four of us, we drove it down the lane to the bend. It went round the bend, and we did not see it again.

I have written the gate in the book, and the cat has been moved from the big book to the top of the door, where she can see the lane. She is not pleased. She says the zombie was hers.

Your friend, Ulla
%%
Letter: Cass to Ilse, the spoon
Dear Ilse,

Your cousin's baby is four days old, and she is the loudest thing on the farm. I say that with love. She wants feeding all night and she has opinions about the blanket.

I have carved a spoon for her, from the birch by the well. Gorm's boy helped with the rough work, and I did the smooth. It is small enough for her mouth, and it has a little bee on the handle, because I could not resist. You can tell her the bee is for her grandmother.

Do not tell me you are too busy to visit. Hives do not hive themselves. Come in Melon, when the honey is in, and bring a jar from the red ribbon hive. Your grandmother would have brought it herself.

Cass
Healer, the farm above Copperhold
%%
Notes: on Isla's curve
These are Nessa's notes for the tutors at Vell, winter of the 196th year of the archive.

Isla's rule is simple and we must teach it simply. A bigger crystal, drilled longer on more writing, grows a better mind. And the curve can be drawn before the mind is grown. That is the whole of it. The rest is practice.

Here is how I put it to the apprentices in the drill room.

Take two crystals, one small and one large. Drill each on the same pages, the same number of times. Test each on pages it was never drilled on. The large one does better. We all knew that.

Now take two crystals the same size. Drill one on a hundred pages and one on two hundred. The one with two hundred does better. But not twice as well. It does better by the curve, and the curve bends. The first pages teach the most. The two hundredth page teaches a little.

Now take a large crystal and a hundred pages, and a small crystal and a thousand. Isla's curve will tell you which wins before you begin. Draw it on the board. Let the apprentices guess first. They guess wrong. Then draw the curve, and they see.

I will tell you what the curve does not say, because the children ask, and the apprentices ask, and I have no answer.

It does not say why the curve bends. Isla could draw it. Every tutor since has drawn it and got the same line. Why it bends, no one wrote down. Leave it open. Do not invent a reason to fill the space.

It does not say what the mind is doing inside the crystal. Looking inside was not done in Isla's day. It is not done now.

It does not say what happens when the crystal is so large that no tutor can check the mind alone. The councils have begun to ask. I have no answer for them either. I say: build the house, and test the mind on pages it has never seen, and be honest about what you cannot check.

One more thing for the drill room. The councils are counting coins for relay houses, tower by tower. They will want a number before they build. Teach the curve, and they will have their number. Teach it honestly, and tell them the curve bends, or they will promise more than the crystal can hold. A promise you cannot keep is worse than a small promise kept.

Nessa
Tutor of apprentices, Vell
%%
Letter: Pell to Gale
Dear Gale,

I will bring the boards tomorrow, if the road stays firm. The packed earth is soft by the stream, and the bridge has a loose rail. I will take the upper way with the cart.

I am sorry about the cow. Wren is at Saltreach this winter, helping a family with a cough. I will ask her to visit when she comes back along the road.

You owe me no honey for the boards. I still owe you for the wheat you gave me last Reaping. Let us call it even before one of us makes a tally board.

I saw your apprentice at the gate. It carried the nail basket to the shed after you pointed to it. Does it understand a whole order now, or only the words you have taught it?

Pell
%%
Letter: Sella to Lyle
Dear Lyle,

I am glad you wrote about the cow. I will come after the snow eases and bring the blue blanket. Do not use the striped one. That is mine, and I have not forgotten last winter.

Wren sent me a note too. She says the cow may have eaten cold beet leaves from the store heap. I told her we keep no beet leaves in the cheese room. She said she meant the cow, not me. Her writing is neat, but it can still sound cross.

The relay lamp above the hill is broken. The glass is cracked, and the keeper has covered it with a board. Hesk says the cold split it. The tower keeper says a stone struck it. Neither has seen a stone there. Until it is mended, messages take longer, so do not wait for word before feeding the cow.

I left two loaves with the kitchen. One is for you. The other is for Hesk, if he brings the dish back.

Sella
%%
Letter: Mara to Finch
Dear Finch,

The net store roof is done, and the room still smells of oak. Thank you for replacing both rafters. I know you had to carry the second one alone after I went to the quay. I am sorry I was late. A basket of herring split on the pier, and every fish went in a different direction.

I found one herring under the bench by the door. It was not there when we began. I have put it in the salt jar. If it is yours, you may have it. If it is the cat's, the cat may have it. I will not ask who dropped it.

Your old ladder is beside the wood store. One rung is cracked, and the mare has chewed the end. I have tied a strip of wool around it so nobody takes it by mistake. The mare seems proud of her work.

There is a little money for the extra rafters in the cup on the table. Please count it before you go. I owe you no more after this, unless the roof finds another hole. The roof has not said.

Mara
%%
Letter: Jory to Finch
Dear Finch,

You may borrow the mare, but do not call her slow in front of her. She knows the word and takes it as a challenge.

Bring her back before the evening tide. She has been drinking from the water barrel, and I would rather not find her standing in it again. She tried that last Longday. I had to pull her out by the mane while she kicked the barrel to pieces.

The lead rope is by your gate. Take the oats from the blue sack, not the white one. The white one is flour, though it looks like oats when the light is poor.

I accept your offer to mend the shed latch. It has been loose since Blossom. My brother says he can fix it, but he has said so every day since Blossom.

Jory
%%
Letter: Pell to Mira
Dear Mira,

I am writing from the Brown Hen. The inn is full of festival folk, and I have taken a place at the end of a table beside the flour bin. The innkeeper says I may sleep upstairs if I move my sacks first. I have moved them twice.

The Apple festival was bright and crowded. Bel read a short piece about the old bridge, and the children painted apples on the notice board. One painted a fish. Bel said it was an apple seen from the side. Nobody believed her, but she kept the fish.

I met your relay keeper from the north road, who carried a message from the tower. The note was clear and warm. Some of the folk at the festival thought a clerk had written it. The keeper said the big mind wrote it. Then three people asked how a mind in a crystal could know what to say.

I told them what Oren told me. A reading mind takes a page one letter at a time. Its window holds about sixty letters. It uses earlier letters that matter to guess the next one. Tutors drill it on many pages, compare its guesses with the pages, and change it when it is wrong. The mind learns the work by seeing examples. It does not read all the page at once.

That answer did not end the talk. One man asked whether the mind understands the words. A woman asked whether a person understands them any better. Then the innkeeper rang his spoon on a cup and told us to stop arguing before the stew went cold.

I have no answer to Orla's question. I only know that the note told me the north road was passable and the bridge was sound. That was useful news. The words were kind too.

I will leave the festival tomorrow and take your parcel north. It has been safe under my coat, though one corner now smells of honey. I hope that is not important.

Your friend,
Pell
%%
Letter: Ulla to Oren, the spoiled box
Dear Oren,

I have been asked to tell you the spoiled box is full. You will know what that means. It means the clerks have been throwing out pages for six months, and nobody has counted them.

I counted them. There are three hundred and eleven pages in the box. Seventy of them are the same drill, page four, which somebody wrote out wrong on the first day and then copied a dozen times. The copies went to the farm school, and the apprentices there drilled on the wrong sums for a whole season.

Nobody meant it. The farm school did not know. The clerks did not check. I did not check either, and that is the part I am writing to tell you about.

I think the test box caught it in the end. A tutor tested the farm mind on the sums in the test box, and the mind got them all wrong. The tutor sent the page back. It took two weeks to find out why. The page was wrong. The drill was wrong. The test box was right.

So I am putting the copy checks back. Every page now gets read aloud by a second clerk before it goes to the drill. It takes longer. It is worth it.

Please do not be angry with me for asking you to take the box to the top floor. You can start with the seventy.

Ulla
%%
Tutor's note: The test of Orla
For apprentices, and for anyone who asks.

Orla was a tutor at Vell, about the ninetieth year of the archive. She asked a question. Can a drilled mind ever think? People had argued about it for years and never settled it, because everyone meant something different by thinking. So Orla gave them a test instead.

Here is the test, in plain words.

Take one mind and one person. Keep them apart, so nobody knows which is which. Write the same questions to both, by letter. Let both write back. Then give the letters to readers who were not told which letter came from the mind and which from the person. Ask the readers to sort them.

If the readers can tell, then something in the letters shows the mind is not like a person, and we can say what it is. If the readers cannot tell, then what? Orla did not answer her own question. That is why people argued ever after.

Here is what the test does not settle, and you should know it.

First, the questions matter. A mind drilled on sums will do sums well and may still have nothing to say about the weather. If the readers ask only what the mind was drilled on, the test is easy and proves little. A good test asks about something new.

Second, the readers matter. If they want the mind to pass, they will guess wrong. If they want it to fail, they will guess wrong the other way. Pick plain readers and tell them nothing.

Third, copying is not thinking, or maybe it is. A mind that reads letters learns to guess the next letter from the ones before. It can write a letter a reader cannot tell from a person's. Some say that is only copying. Some say a person does the same, and we do not hold it against them.

Orla's test is still used. Contests between tutors' halls give each mind the same unseen questions, and the readers are folk from the towns. What the test proves, nobody agrees. What it shows, everyone can see: that a mind can answer in letters, and that we cannot always tell.

Write your own answer. Keep it short.

Nessa, tutor at Vell
%%
Letter: Nessa to her sister
Dear Rill,

You asked me what I do all day. Here it is, in order.

I stand the apprentices in their row. I put a crystal in the drill box and set the drill. The crystal answers. When it is wrong, I move its weights a little toward the right answer. That is the whole of it. The rest is patience and good pages.

Pip's mind can now sort a field of beetroot from a field of wheat, most days. Clank's mind can carry a load along a wall and not drop it. Both are wrong about one thing in ten. Nessa's rule: never send an untested mind to the fields.

Come to Vell before the snow and I will show you the copying room. It is the brightest room in the hill.

Your sister,
Nessa

P.S. I have your jar of honey on the shelf by the drill box. The apprentices cannot reach it. I checked.
%%
Letter: Dace to Jory, the lost shingles
Dear Jory,

I have a small matter, and a large one.

The small matter first. After the storm, one hundred and twelve shingles from the roof of the town house landed in your mill pond at Ambrook. I know this because a boy from your village rowed over the next morning with a basket and a long face. He said they floated. I did not think a shingle could float that far, but the wind was very bad.

Please send them back by the next cart. I do not need all of them. Eighty would do. The other thirty-two I give to the ducks.

The large matter. The relay lamp on my tower broke in the same storm, and the lamp at Ambrook is the nearest one that still shone. Your keeper lit it for us. She sent messages up and down the line all night, because ours was dark. When the glazier came, she sent word to him as well. I owe her a great deal. I would like to send her a gift, but I do not know what she likes. Do you?

Last time we met, you said she keeps bees. If so, I will send a hive. If not, I will send a cheese. Both are good. Both are made in Three Wells, in the cellar of the inn.

I hope the wheel at the mill is turning well, and the sluice is still shut. You know the one.

Your friend,
Dace
%%
Letter: Isla to Oren, the market test
Dear Oren,

I am at the Vell market, beside the apple stall. The bees have swarmed from the hives behind the inn. They are in the apple tree, and Pell says they have chosen the best fruit.

The tutors have set out the test box. No mind has seen these pages before. Each hall will give its mind the same drill. We will read the answers after the market bell.

Please bring the clean score sheets. Do not bring the ones with your tea marks.

Isla
%%
Letter: Isla to Cass, on planning a mind
Dear Cass,

Rell sent your question to me with a note about his wet drill board. I know the feeling of a spoiled tally. We had to copy one trial twice after a clerk found a missing page.

Your example is close. A curve does not tell us every taste of a finished batch, and it does not tell us each answer of a mind. It gives a useful plan from many trials. We compare minds with different amounts of room and different amounts of writing. We test them fairly, on pages they have not read. Then we draw what growth we can expect from more room and more drilling.

It is important to say what the curve cannot do. It cannot make a poor page good. It cannot make a mind learn without examples. It cannot replace the test. A larger crystal gives the mind room to keep more patterns, but those patterns must come from writing and practice.

The council is building relay houses because large minds may answer apprentices in many towns. That work will take stone, glass, copper and careful keepers. It will take water too. Your well may not be the only one that runs low when builders arrive. Tell the harbor keeper to count the water before he lends it. A promise is easier to keep when the jars are measured.

I have not seen the marks on your hill. I will ask the surveyors to spare the oak if it stands outside their wall. I cannot promise they will. Plans must fit the ground, and the ground is not always kind to plans.

Keep the old pages dry. A small mind can learn from them, and a larger mind can learn more, if the pages are clear and the lessons continue.

Isla
%%
Letter: Gorm to Ilse, the cave again
Dear Ilse,

I promised to write more about the cave. The clerks have now made a copy of the drawing and it is pinned up in the hall at Kettle Ridge, where everyone can see it. Here is what they found when they went down a second time.

The cave is not a single room. It is a set of rooms, one below the other, joined by narrow steps cut into the stone. The steps are worn in the middle, as if many feet had gone up and down them. Nobody living can say who cut them, or when. Some people say it was a farmer who wanted a cool store. Others say it was the old miners, long before Copperhold had a shaft.

On the second level the walls are smooth. The clerks put a hand on them and said they felt warm. I put my hand on them too, and they were cold. I think they were only less cold than the pool at the bottom. Stone does that. It keeps the heat it has been given for a long time, and gives it back slowly.

The third level is the strangest. The roof is very low, and the floor is full of small round stones that clatter when you walk. Along one wall someone has set out a row of flat rocks, each the size of a plate. They are not very neat. They are set edge to edge, like a fence, and they lead to a dark hole that goes on past the reach of our lanterns.

The clerks wanted to climb through the hole, but I would not let them. We have no rope long enough. I wrote a note and put it in a box by the hole, with a sheet of paper and a pencil, in case the next people who come want to leave something too.

Now I want to tell you about the thing that worries me. The tutors at Vell have been telling the council that stone and water make the best homes for old things. When I told them about the cave, they asked whether the walls had any marks that looked like letters. I said no. They looked disappointed. They are always hoping for letters.

I think there are no letters here. I think there is only a cool dry place, and water, and a long quiet. That is enough for a farmer. It is enough for us, too.

The fence is finished. The post is up with its torch. Tam's cousin has painted the sign himself, though he cannot spell very well. It says "Mind the Hole" with the M very large. Travelers stop to laugh at it, and then they walk slowly past.

Come up in Frost, when the ground is hard and the road is quiet. I will show you the pool. You can taste it yourself.

Gorm
Kettle Ridge, the 157th year of the archive
%%
Letter: Isla to Jory
Dear Jory,

Your mill pond is frozen at the edges. The middle still moves, and the wheel still turns. I watched it while I waited for flour. A duck walked across the ice, then changed its mind and walked back.

I need two sacks of flour for the hamlet kitchen. We have a pot of potato soup ready, but no bread to put beside it. I can pay in apples and a jar of honey. Tell me which you would rather have.

Please grind the flour fine. Last time it came out so rough that the loaf scratched my spoon. I know the mill was busy. I am only saying that my spoon still remembers.

I have mended the tear in your flour sack. It was a small tear, but flour gets out of small tears faster than a mouse.

The road to Ambrook is hard with frost. If you send the sacks by cart, send them before the sun goes down. The bridge plank near the pond is loose. I put a stick beside it to warn people, but the stick has fallen over twice.

Warmly,
Isla
%%
Letter: Bel to the archive
To the archive at Vell,

My name is Bel and I am at the school at Three Wells. My teacher says we should write to the archive sometimes, so the archive knows what we are learning, and this is my essay.

The bees.

A bee is small and yellow and black. It lives in a hive with many other bees. It goes out to the flowers and comes back with honey. The honey is for the hive in the winter. The beekeeper takes some of the honey but not all, because the bees need some for the winter too. My aunt Dara is a beekeeper at Ambrook and she has seven hives now. The seventh is mine and I have not named it yet.

My aunt Dara says bees notice things. She says if the bees are quiet you should look at the sky and the flowers and the wind. I asked her what the bees noticed about the lights in the north, and she said the bees did not tell her, they only buzzed. I think that was a joke.

At market day the square was full. Mayor Dace put up a notice that says no pigs in the square. Everyone knows it is about the pig that sat in the north well. My father says the pig was only hot. My mother says the pig was rude.

There was a new road built this spring. It goes from the Long Road up to Vell. My teacher says roads are how towns talk to each other. I walked on the new road with my father and it is very smooth. There is a bridge of stone. My father said the bridge is the best part.

Some people at the market said the ships at Saltreach are very big now and families are going over the sea. Some people said the mines hum at night. Some people said the relays in the north have gone quiet. I do not know if these are true. My teacher says when you do not know if a thing is true, you should write it down as a question, not a fact.

So here are my questions. What is over the sea? Why do the mines hum? Why are the relays quiet in the north?

I would like to know. Nobody I ask knows. My aunt Dara says some questions do not have answers yet, and that is all right, and you should keep asking anyway.

Please keep this essay in the archive.

Bel
Three Wells school
%%
Letter: Bel to Pell, the honey
Dear Pell,

I am sorry about the honey jar. I did not break it. The cat did, but the cat cannot pay, so I will.

I am sending one emerald with this letter. It is the one my grandmother gave me for my birthday. It is all I have. The jar was a big one, so I think it is fair.

Please do not tell my grandmother. She would say she gave it to me to keep.

From Bel, at the market, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Gale to Len
Dear Len,

The road reached the lower bend today. Father says it is not a road yet, only packed earth with stones at the edge. I say a cart can use it, so it is a road.

The men worked until the light left. I carried them water and dropped the cup once. Nobody was hurt. The cup is now in three pieces.

A traveler came by and said the road will reach Three Wells before Leaffall. He had dust on his ears and one boot lace tied with string.

I will write again when the first cart comes.

Gale
%%
Letter: the innkeeper's apology
To the carters of the Long Road, and to anyone who has slept in the Halfway Inn this autumn, from Ottilie, who runs it.

My friends,

I must apologise for the soup. The soup the other day was not soup. It was the beetroot stew with the wrong jar of salt, and it made the carter from Saltreach weep, and then sneeze, and then sing. I do not say he disliked it. I only say it was not what it was meant to be.

I must also apologise for the beds. There are twelve beds in this inn, and at the height of the fair there were fourteen people who wanted one. Two of you slept on the bench by the hearth, and one slept under the table with the cat. I have counted the cat in the beds, which is not allowed, and I have told the cat.

And I apologise, once more, for the lamp. It is a relay lamp, and not mine, and it is not my fault that the glass cracked in the storm. But I have been asked more about it than about the soup, and I know it is my roof the tower stands near. I have written to the keeper, and the keeper has written back in a very fine hand, and that is the end of the matter as far as I am concerned.

Thank you all for coming. Thank you for the bets, and the riddles, and the cups that you have broken on the stairs. Thank you for the carter who left a bag of apples for the cook, and for the midwife who told the cook she was wrong about the pie, and was right.

Please come back in the spring. The beds will be better, and the stool will be level, and the soup will be what it says.

Ottilie, of the Halfway Inn
%%
Letter: Bel to Tilly, with a debt paid
Dear Aunt Tilly,

I am writing from the market. It is the third hot day in a row and everyone is cross except the bees.

First, news. I have paid back my debt. You remember I borrowed three emeralds from you in spring for the new school slate? I have sold twelve jars of Pell's honey for the stall, and Pell gave me a share. It came to three emeralds and a bit. I am sending the three and keeping the bit.

Do not be shocked. I counted twice. Teacher Ida says I am good at sums when I want to be.

Second, news. At school we have been talking about something called Orla's test. Orla was a tutor at Vell, very long ago. She asked what would happen if a hidden mind and a person answered the same letter, and nobody could tell which was which.

Our class tried it with a curtain. I will not tell you how it ended. I will tell you what I learned, which is that it is hard to be sure of anything when the answer is hidden.

I tried the test on you in my head. I imagined you behind a curtain and the cat behind the other. I could always tell. The cat would not answer a letter, and you would answer with five pages.

But then I thought: what if the cat could write? I think it would write: "Fish." I think you would write: "Dear Bel, I hope you are eating your vegetables." So it would still be easy.

I think Orla's test is hardest for people who are not like anyone you know.

Please send news of the goat. And more of the plum jam. I will pay in emeralds if I have to.

Your niece,
Bel
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, the Vell contest
Dear Tam,

I went to the market at Vell before the first cold night. I expected to buy apples and leave. Instead I watched the tutors test their minds beside the notice board.

The tutors had gathered pages that no mind had practiced. They gave the same unseen drill to each hall. The minds answered, and the tutors kept the scores covered until every answer was finished.

That was a good rule. If a mind is tested on the very pages used to teach it, a high score can mean only that it has seen those pages before. A new page gives a better measure of what it has learned.

The contest also made the tutors honest with one another. No hall could claim its mind was best by giving it an easier drill. Each hall faced the same test. One mind did well, and one did not. Their tutors spoke kindly to both.

I met Nessa after the scores were read. She said the test box must stay apart from the teaching pages. Oren had written the box label twice, once on the lid and once on the shelf. He said the shelf label was for people who forget. Nessa said the lid label was for people who move boxes.

The bees swarmed in the apple tree near the stalls. Pell tried to sell honey beside them, but Dace made him stop. He said a bee is not a market sign.

I bought apples for the journey and a jar of honey for your cough. Do not say you have no cough. I heard you clear your throat at the relay desk.

Your sister,
Isla
%%
Letter: Isla to Tove, the curve
Dear Tove,
You asked me plainly, and I will answer plainly, because you always do the sums on your fingers and I want you to be able to check mine.
We grew four minds at Vell when I was young. Each one had a small crystal, and each one was drilled on a small pile of pages. They got a little better and then they stopped. Everyone thought that was how minds were. Then I took the same drill and gave one crystal twice the room, and drilled it twice as long on twice the pages. It did not only do twice as well. It did a great deal better, and it kept going.
So I began to draw. I took each size of crystal and each length of drill, and I marked how well the mind did at the end, on a page no mind had ever seen. The marks made a line. The line went up and up, then bent over and flattened, like a branch that has grown as far as the light. Where it bends, another page of drill buys very little. Where the line is still steep, a bigger crystal pays. I can draw the curve before the mind is grown. That is the whole of it.
The councils have asked what it means for the relays. I told them. A big mind needs a big crystal and a long drill. A long drill needs a great deal of writing, and the best writing we have is in the Archive at Vell. So the mind that answers across the relays must be grown where the writing is, and kept where it can be fed and cooled. The councils heard that and went quiet. Then they began to talk about towers.
You will ask whether I think this is good. I think it is true. Whether it is good depends on what the towers are for, and nobody has written that down yet.
Oren asked me to tell you the archive is well. He sends his love and his worry, both in the same envelope.
Your sister,
Isla
%%
Letter: Nell to Kit, about the cave
Nell writes from the tutor school at Vell to her grandmother Kit, on the farm outside Copperhold. Autumn.
Dear Gran,
Your letter made me laugh at the supper table. The other girls say that your cat is a terror. I said no, she is just clever.
I have news. I am coming home at Leaffall, as you asked. I will bring the others, too. Maren and Sedge want to see the farm. I told them it is not much to look at. I told them the pie is good.
There is a thing I have to ask. The field behind the barn, the long one, where Grandfather grows turnips. Was there ever a hole in it? I dreamed that there was a cave under the field, with a round door, and I could hear the wind in it.
It was only a dream. But it was a clear one. Please look.
Love,
Nell
%%
Notice: spring market, Saltreach
The spring market opens at the quay on the first day of Blossom and runs five days.

Stalls: north of the harbor wall. Fish market: as usual, by the price board. Cheese, honey, wool, bread, and tools by the slip.

The shipyard asks that people keep clear of the long slip while the big ship is in the frame. Do not climb the frame. The wood is green and it will split.

The harbor master has heard rumors about the north relays. He says he has no word either way, and asks people to stop telling the children. Whatever the truth, the lamps on the pier stay lit.

Cornet fish are in. Cod is good. Apples from Ambrook, if the carts come.

Dogs on ropes, please.
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, midwinter
Dear Mira,
Midwinter came and went, and we did it properly this year, because Linnet said so, and Linnet is now in charge of the ridge's celebrations, which none of us had planned for.
We lit the fire on the top field at dusk. Everyone came up with a lantern, even the ones who said they would not. The old straw went on first, then the pine branches from the bottom field, then a broken chair from the Kettle Inn, which the innkeeper gave us with a face that said it had been wanting to go for years.
We ate pumpkin pie in the snow. The crust gets cold before the middle, so you eat it from the middle out, and the crust is the last thing, which is how it should be.
Then the long song. You know the long song. Ansel sang it, Linnet's mother sang it, and Wick sang it so badly that the cows came to the fence to complain. I sang very loud. People asked me to sing less loud. I sang the same, and then I sang the last verse louder, because it is the last verse.
Pip stood at the edge of the firelight and watched. It did not sing. Tuck stood beside it and did not sing either. I asked Pip why. It thought about it for a long time, and then it did not say anything, which is what an apprentice does when it has decided something.
Later I asked Tuck to fetch more wood. It fetched it. I said thank you. It stopped and looked at me, and I could see it was surprised. Nobody had ever said thank you to it before. Ansel says that is because he never says it. I told him he should start, and he said he would think about it.
Then the snow came down on the fire, and the fire hissed like a cross cat, and everyone laughed. I laughed too. I realized I had not laughed like that since the wedding, and that the wedding was a while ago, and that it was still the best thing that had happened on the ridge all year.
Wick's aunt asked me to tell you she has forgiven me for the cake. She says the floor has forgiven me too, and would like a slice of the next one, cut with a knife and not a shovel.
This goes with the first cart, when the road opens. Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Dara to her sister Meb
Dear Meb,

I am writing this from the Brown Hen, on the Long Road, with a cup of hot cider beside me and my boots drying by the hearth.

The road was slow going. The cart threw a wheel near the bridge over the stream, and I sat on the grass an hour while a carter helped me fix it. He was kind and would not take an emerald for his trouble. He said: pay it on to the next person who needs it. So I will.

The inn is full tonight. There is a wool trader, two families going south to Saltreach, a miner from Copperhold with a bad cough, and an old woman who says she is walking the whole Long Road before she is too old to walk it. She says it is a promise she made to her husband. She has a good stick and a good laugh.

The talk at supper turned to the north. Everyone has a different story. The miner said the lights in the sky were fires, and the fires were on the hills, and nobody went to see. The wool trader said they were not fires but lamps, hung up high, and he laughed when he said it. One of the families said they had heard the Deep Works hum at night, and the stone below grew warm, and the miners had stopped going down past a certain level. The miner with the cough went quiet at that. He did not say it was true. He did not say it was false.

I asked the innkeeper what he thought. He said: I think the ale is good and the beds are warm, and that is my business. Then he brought more bread.

I do not know what to make of any of it. I keep my bees and I pay my debts and I walk where I like. The world is wide and strange and I am only a beekeeper. Still, I am glad to be going home to the hives.

The cider here is good. Not as good as yours.

Your sister,
Dara
%%
Letter: Abel to Nessa, the child asks
Dear Nessa,

My daughter Isla is four. She is named for the tutor. She has begun to ask questions, and the questions are better than mine.

We walked up to the relay tower above the mill pond, on the hill, the little one with one lamp and one keeper. She watched it blink a long time. Then she asked: who is it talking to? I said, the next tower, and the next, all the way to Northpoint. She thought about it. Then she asked: and who is at the end?

I did not know what to tell her. There is a tower at the end, and a keeper, and a big mind in a house below it, in a crystal the size of a loaf. But she meant something more, I think. She meant: does the line ever stop, and if it stops, is anyone listening?

I told her the truth, which is that I do not know. She was satisfied. Children are satisfied with the truth more often than we think.

I have been reading the primer to her, the page on Isla's curve. She likes the part about drawing the curve on the board before the mind is grown. She says it is like knowing how tall you will be. I said, a little, and she frowned at me, because she has her mother's frown, and said: but the curve bends. I said, yes. She said: so you know how tall you will be, but not where you will stop growing.

I had no answer for that either.

The school is well. The children still ask about apprentices. I still get it wrong. Come and see us when the roads clear.

Abel
Teacher, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Mab to Bel, a gift

Dear Bel,

Thank you for the small jar of honey. It was a good gift, and the cloth tied over its lid was very neat.

I shared it with the children at the end of lessons. We spread it on bread and ate outside in the light well courtyard. There was enough for every slice, though Halen tried to make his slice wider by pressing it flat. I told him honey is not made by pressing bread.

The bees are busy in summer. Your jar smells of the flowers by the east road. I will keep the cloth for our chalk box, once the jar is empty.

I have put a note in the school book to thank you. You do not need to bring another jar. Bring yourself, and tell us how you helped your aunt with the hives.

Mab
Schoolteacher at Vell
%%
Letter: Nil to his sister, the water
Dear Sella,

I am home at Saltreach, on the hill above the market, and I will stay. I have a bed and a door and a neighbor who makes too much cheese. That is enough for me for a while.

You asked why I left the sea. I will tell you plainly. The last ship I served went north and east and came back light, and I stood on the deck and looked at the water and did not know what was across it, and I did not like not knowing. The shipwrights build bigger every season, and the families go aboard, and nobody says where. A sailor hears things. I will not repeat them. You know I do not like to say a thing I have not seen.

Some of the men say the north is silent. Some say it is only the snow. I have not been to Northpoint. I will not pretend to know.

I have work here. The harbor master wants a man at the wall to watch the boats at night and keep the lamps. It is a small job and it suits me. I will keep the lamps lit.

Write and tell me how the children are. Tell them the sea is cold and the fish are fast.

Your brother,
Nil
%%
Letter: Tam to Pell, a new apprentice
Dear Pell,
Ansel, at the end of our ridge, has a new apprentice. It came up from Vell on the last cart before the snow, in the 206th year of the archive, with a paper from the tutor house. The paper says its name is Tuck, and that it is good with rope.
Tuck is small and quick, with a copper chest and a number scratched on its back. We call it Tuck anyway. It did not object.
Ansel is a slow man, and his orders are slow. He said to Tuck:
> come
Tuck came straight away. Ansel was so surprised he forgot the next order. The answer was:
= come
That is the most sensible thing I have heard from an apprentice all year.
Pip has taken Tuck under its wing. Tuck watches very carefully, and then does the thing again a little better.
Come up in Blossom and see the whole thing. Tuck will carry your bags. It likes carrying things. It is not very interested in what is in them.
Tam
%%
Letter: a clerk of Vell to Mabel
Dear Mistress Mabel,

The Archive at Vell has heard that the Halfway Inn keeps a map of the Long Road, drawn in brown ink, and hangs it by the stair. The copying room would be glad to know this is true. They would be gladder still to see it.

The copying room has been trying for three years to put every road in the district into the hill, and has got as far as the ridge. The Halfway is the only inn on the road older than the road itself. If the map is as old as I am told, it may show the first inn, before anyone drew the road around it. That is a thing the Archive would very much like to know.

We would not take the map from you. You have my word, and the word of the copying room, which is worth more than mine. We would send a clerk with a drawing board and a good lamp. He would sit by your hearth for three days, copying every line, every number, and the little bird on the roof. We are sure the bird is a mistake of the old hand. We will copy it anyway, because the Archive keeps the mistakes too.

You may ask why we do not simply draw a new map from the road. A new map shows the road as it is. An old map shows the road as it was, and that difference is what we want. Two copies are safer than one.

I know the hearth is particular, and the carters will want to sit on the map, and they will be wrong to. Tell the clerk where to sit, and tell him to say please to the cat.

If you say yes, the clerk will come by the next cart, after the frost has settled. If you say no, the map is yours, and we will be sorry. We will keep writing every spring, because the Archive does not give up on anything it has been told is worth keeping.

With respect for your hearth,
A clerk of Vell, copying room, for the Archive
%%
Letter: Wren to Ash
Dear Ash,

Thank you for the map. I have hung it beside the jar shelves. Moss says the west ditch is drawn too narrow. I told Moss that the ditch is narrow, and that the map has not made it so.

The farmer's youngest came to me with a cut finger. The child had been pulling reeds and blamed the reed for being sharp. I washed the cut and wrapped it. The child went home carrying the bandage box as if it were a prize.

The new beds look well kept. The carrots are already showing green. I sent a small pot of salve with the child for the farmer's cracked hands.

There is talk that the cough has reached a house near the fish weir. I have not seen the family yet. A traveler says the cough came with a boat. Another says it has been in the marsh all along. Both speak as if they stood beside it and watched it arrive.

I will go there tomorrow. Keep the path marked. The mud is deep by the willow.

Wren
%%
Letter: Yew to the Archive
To the clerks of the Archive at Vell,

I am the schoolteacher at the farm outside Copperhold, and I am writing about a song.

At the spring festival the children sang a song as they carried the lantern up the hill. It is a children's song, with a refrain about lamps and wells, and the children made up the verses over the winter. Three of the verses are very good. One is about a goat. I have written the words out here, in the children's own spelling, which I have not corrected, because it is theirs.

I would be grateful for a copy of any old children's songs of Copperhold that the Archive may have. The old songs of the hill are not written down in this town. My grandmother knew some, and she said they were about the copper and the sheep, but she could not remember the tunes.

Please also tell me whether there are copies of the Vell festival songs, so the children can compare them. They have a rivalry with the children of Vell, and I should like to see it fairly settled.

The prize we won is a jar of honey and a blue ribbon. The ribbon is on the wall of the schoolroom. The honey was eaten at the table on the same evening, and the children said it was the best honey they had ever had, which may be true.

Thank you for your help. I will send the children's copy-work with the next cart, as a fair exchange.

Yew
Schoolteacher, the farm outside Copperhold
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira
Gwen says the fence is mine to mend because I set the post crooked. I say the post was straight when I set it. The ground has sunk under it, which is not the same thing.

Pip has been sent to fetch oak boards from the barn. He came back with beetroot. He says the basket looked like the board basket from the road. I told him a basket is not a board. Gwen says I should not teach him while cross.

The fox came to the hens at first light. It took one chicken and left feathers in the yard. The rest are in the shed now. Gwen says the fence will keep the fox out if I mend it before dark.

The relay house at Vell is said to be larger than Three Wells. Is that true? They say its mind can read more pages in one sitting than Oren can copy in a year. I do not know how anyone checked that.

Write soon. Spring wind has taken my cap twice.

Tam
%%
Letter: Lio to Sable, the jar
Dear Sable,

I did return the jar. I put it beside your back step, under the window. The rain must have moved it. Rain is very clever when it wants a jar.

I found your candle in my shed. It was not seasick. It was leaning toward the door, which is where I had put it. I thought it was a fine candle and nearly used it to mend a net.

I will bring the clay jar tonight. I will also bring two fish. One is for supper, and one is for the jar, if the jar has been lonely.

The boat came in at last. Old Tern and his crew were late from the south pier. They say a rope caught on a post and held them there until the tide turned. Their supper was cold, but the fish were still good.

I will come after the nets are mended. Do not put the leaning candle by the door. It may leave.

Your brother,
Lio
%%
Notice: Ambrook summer market
The market at Ambrook will be held in the square by the mill pond on the first of Swarm, from morning until the lamps are lit.

Stalls: honey, apples, bread, cheese, wool, pots, tools, and a woman who mends chairs.

Jory's mill will be open and the wheel will turn. Do not put your hand in it. We mean this kindly.

The bridge is mended. The loose plank is gone. Please thank nobody for it twice, the traveler has left.

Children may sell what they have made, but not frogs. We had trouble with frogs last year.

Left at the pond: one glove, brown, and one small boot, right foot. Ask at the mill.
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, what then
Dear Tam,

I have thought about your fair for a whole week, and I still have not got to the bottom of it. You know I like to get to the bottom of things. The lamp needs its bottom cleaned, and I clean it, and the question is still there when I come down.

Here is what I think now, and I may change it.

First, the test does not tell us what a thing is. It tells us what the readers can see. If Peg and the mind write the same way, the readers see the same thing. That is all the test can show. It is a fair test, but it is a test of the readers' eyes as much as of the writers.

Second, I think Orla knew that. She was a careful tutor. I think she proposed the test so that people would have to say what they meant by thinking before they could argue about it. Most of the argument at the fair was people arguing about what thinking is, and none of us agreed, and I do not think we were meant to.

Third, I read letters. You know I do. Some of the letters that come up the line from the big minds are as clear as Mother's, and some are kind, and say plainly when they do not know. I cannot always tell whether they come from someone thinking or from something that writes very well. I do not think this makes me a fool. I think it makes me a keeper of a lamp who has to decide, each night, what the light means.

Fourth, what then? That is the question at the end of the test, and it is the question I keep coming back to. If we cannot tell, then we have to choose what to do, and that is different from knowing. We could be kind to both. We could be careful with both. We could check both on pages they have never seen, the way the tutors do. I think that is what the tutors have been doing since Orla, without anyone thanking them for it.

Fifth, I am not sure I want the answer. A thing that thinks is a heavy thing to have in a room. A thing that does not think, and writes as if it did, is heavy in another way. Either way, somebody has to keep the lamp lit, and somebody has to ask the questions, and somebody has to be honest about how little they know.

So I will keep the lamp lit. I will keep writing down what I cannot tell. You may tell Peg she is not a crystal. Let Hesk tell her she is a little, if he must.

Your sister, who loves you, and who still thinks you talk too much at fairs,
Mira

P.S. I have written the question on the inside cover of the lamp book, so the next keeper will find it on a cold night and have something to think about besides the cold.
%%
Letter: Hara to Emmet
Dear Emmet,

I found the jars by the gate. One had a beetroot leaf in it. I have washed it, though I cannot say why it was there.

The tutor at Copperhold visited the farm today. She showed me how the big mind learns to answer letters. It reads a letter, writes an answer, and a tutor gives that answer a mark. If the answer is cruel, careless, or sure when it should not be, it gets a poor mark. The mind is changed by many such marks.

The tutor said the mark does not make every answer right. It teaches the mind what people judge to be a better answer. I asked if that was the same as knowing a person. She said she did not know, and would not claim it was.

That was a good answer from the tutor.

The well is still dry. I have asked the mine hall to send a mason. Until then, please use the lower spring. Keep the sheep from the rope.

Hara
%%
Letter: Nessa to Merle, the drill box
Dear Merle,

The gelding may stay with you until the twenty-fifth of Sowing. I have checked the drill box and he is not needed. He is a good horse and he likes the open air. He likes the market. He does not like the drill yard, where the apprentices stand in their row and he cannot see why.

The fence rail can wait. I have nailed a plank across it and told the apprentices not to lean. They leaned anyway. The plank held. So the matter is settled.

Now the real reason for this letter.

You said there is nothing to learn in a stable. I have been thinking about it. The new apprentice at the market went back to the tutor house and stood in the drill room for a long time. It did not move. I asked it what it was doing. It gave me no answer. It cannot. So I watched it instead.

It was sorting the jars on the shelf. Honey on the left, clay pots on the right, wool in the basket. It had watched the honey seller all day, and it had learned this. It had watched the honey seller pat its shoulder, and it had learned that too. It did it right each time. The jars are sorted. The shelf has never been so neat.

I have made a new drill board for the drill yard. It is a small field drawn on wood, with a fence and a gate. The apprentices stand in their row and I point at the field and they walk the rows. They are getting better. One of them still walks into the fence. I have painted the fence red so it can see it.

I would like the apprentice to come to your stable when it is older. A stable is a good place to learn. There are horses and hay and a gate that sticks. I think it would like it.

Keep the gelding another week. He is doing better at the market than he ever did here.

Your friend,
Nessa
%%
Letter: Pip to Nessa
Nessa,

I am at the farm outside Copperhold this summer, helping Hesk's cousin with the beetroot and the pigs. Tam said I should write and tell you how the mind does. So.

The mind is in a small crystal now, written with fewer marks, as the council asked. It sorts the beetroot from the stones. It is wrong about one stone in twenty and puts it in the beetroot. I pick it out. It is not a bad mind. It is a smaller mind and it makes a smaller mistake.

The honey jar broke. It was on the fence post by the field while I sorted, and the mind, which was carrying the last load, walked into the post. The jar fell and broke on a stone. The bees came for a long time. I did not eat any of it off the spoon, because Brin says that is not a proper use.

Please send another jar when you can. Put it high up.

Pip

P.S. Tam says the scarf is still too long.
%%
Letter: Dace to the hamlet
Dear neighbors of the hamlet,

I have heard about the creeper. I am sorry about the wall. I am gladder that nobody was hurt.

The town council has voted 12 emeralds to rebuild it. A mason will come from Three Wells in the spring and bring his own lunch.

In the meantime, keep your torches lit along the lane. Creepers do not like light, and they do not like hens, which is why the hens are now being treated with great respect.

Yours,
Dace, mayor
%%
Letter: Bryn to Tam, flood water
Dear Tam,

The rain filled the field ditch before dawn. Water came over the low edge and ran into the horse yard. It was not deep, but it covered the straw by the gate and made the stones slick.

I moved the bay horse and the chestnut mare into the barn. They were glad to come in. The old grey horse was not. He stood in the wet yard and watched me lead the others away, as if he had been asked to judge my work.

I shut the ditch with boards and packed mud around them. Then I led him in with a bucket of oats. He came at once. He has a fine sense of duty when oats are involved.

The water has gone down. I am drying the saddle blankets on the barn rail, and I have spread fresh straw in the stalls. The harness is safe on its peg, though it now smells of wet oak and horse.

Could you send Pip with the small hand cart tomorrow? I need to carry the spoiled straw to the far edge of the yard. I will pay him in apples if he does not let the grey horse pull the cart.

Bryn
%%
Letter: Lantern to his mother
Dear Mother,

I am well. The tower is well. I keep the lamps lit and I write down when I light them and when I put them out. Mira says my writing is getting neater. She says it like it costs her something to say it. I think she is proud. She will not say proud.

The snow is very deep here. I dig paths. I have dug a path to the relay house and a path to the wood store and a path to the little shed where we keep the ice. The paths are straight. Mira says a straight path is a good path.

I want to tell you about the sky. You will say I am a silly boy. But I will tell you anyway.

There are lights in the north. They are not stars. They move slow, like boats on still water, and they are green and sometimes red. They do not make a sound. I watched them four nights. On the fourth night I felt sure they were looking at us. Mira says they are falling stars. I know what a falling star is. These are not falling.

Some of the folk down in the town say they are fires on the far hills. Some say they are the old stories come back. One old man said they are nothing and we should mend our roofs. I liked him.

I am not afraid. I am only awake a lot. I sit by the lamp and watch the sky and think about home. Is the cat well? Is the roof holding? Did the apples come in good this year?

I will be home in the spring if the roads are open. Tell Father I have kept the lamp clean, like he said. Tell him I count the rungs every time. Ninety. He will know what it means.

Your son,
Lantern
%%
Letter: Ama to Yarrow, about the honey
Dear Yarrow,

The dark honey is not for the bet. I have said so to everyone at the hives, and the bees agree with me.

The dark honey is for the sick. Wren sends for it every winter, and she sends the jars back with a little note: thank you, it helped. So you may have one jar for the bet, but it will be the second best dark jar, and I will tell you a secret about it.

The secret is that the best jar was for Jory, and Jory has already had it, and he has been going round the pond in a state of great happiness for two weeks, and the apple trees have not even flowered yet.

Tell Hal the pie will be cherry. I will bring the cherries from the south tree myself, and I will be watching him eat it.

The mill is still turning. Jory says the wheel is slow in the cold, but the sluice is not to be opened, so it will be slow until the spring. I told him the sluice is not for opening, and he said he knew that, and then he went and looked at it for an hour.

Now the other news, since you asked me for it in your last letter and I did not answer.

The cherries are in. There were more than I thought. Ama's south tree gave two baskets, and the birds had the top of the tree before we could get to it, so the south side is ours and the top is theirs. We have agreed to this. The birds did not argue.

The hives on the hill are heavy with the late honey. Old Brin says they will be too heavy to lift before the frost, and that he is glad of it, because he has been wanting an excuse to sit down all summer. We will take the frames down on the first warm day of the week. I will need two strong people and a bucket of hot water for the knife. The apprentice will carry the frames down the hill. It walks very carefully on the steep part, and it does not drop them. Ama says that is the only reason we keep it.

The pond is quiet now. The blossom is long gone, and the leaves are yellow on the water. Jory has been walking round it every evening, and I have been watching him do it from the mill step. He is not very good at walking round things. He stops halfway, looks at the water, and then carries on. I think it is the best walk round a pond I have ever seen.

Tell Yarrow the bet is paid, and that she was right. Tell Hal the pie is cherry. Tell Pell the jar is coming, and that she should not be surprised if it is the dark one.

Ama
%%
Letter: Nel to Cass
Dear Cass,

Thank you for the wooden horse. I call it Little Brown. It sleeps beside my bed and does not wake when the windmill squeaks.

I did not mean to make Mother afraid. I only wanted one quiet place. My cousins followed me from the square and asked me to play horse. They all wanted to be the horse, so I went behind the hay stack to think.

I will tell them I want to be the rider next time. If they all want that too, we can take turns. Mother says this is a better plan than hiding. She says plans work best when people can hear them.

I came to the barn with you yesterday. The brown horse let me brush his neck. He tried to eat the brush once, but I kept hold of it. You said he was testing my sense. I think he was testing the bristles.

I brought him one apple today. Mother cut it in half. The horse ate his half and I ate mine. Little Brown watched from my pocket.

Your friend,
Nel
%%
Letter: Dace to Hesk, the road mud
Dear Hesk,

Your farm cousins at the edge of Copperhold say the road to the ore sheds is mud to the knee. I am writing on their behalf, because they have already written to you three times and you have not answered.

I know you are busy. You are always busy. But a road is a road, and carts cannot swim.

If you could spare two of your crew and a load of gravel from the deep stone sorting, I will send the town cart to fetch it. I will also send a pie. The pie is not a bribe. It is a pie.

Please answer. Even one line will do.

Dace
%%
Letter: Nessa to Harl, the warning line
Dear Harl,
I am not angry with you. I was, for a day, and I said things I should not have. I am sorry for those.
You did a foolish thing, and you know it, and you have been very quiet about it since. I do not want you to be quiet. I want you to be careful. Those are not the same.
Read the mind's answers again, slowly. You will see that it did not pretend to know a healer's work. It said it was not a healer. It said to send for one. It said it could tell what it had read, and no more. That is a very honest thing for a mind to say, and it is the thing you left out.
When you give a mind's answer to someone who is sick, give them the whole answer. Give them the warning first. Then give them the rest. A child cannot tell which part is true, and neither can a frightened mother. The warning is the only part they can always trust.
Come and see me on the first warm day. We will walk up the hill to the north gate, and look at the view. You will not need to say anything, and neither will I.
Nessa
%%
Letter: Cass to Nera, Isla's curve
Dear Nera,

I heard about Isla from a clerk who stopped for cider. He had a page from the tutor house. I read it twice, though I still had flour on my hands.

The old crystals were small, and the tutors gave them a short set of drills. Isla found that a bigger crystal could hold more of what it learned. If the tutor gave it more writing, and let it study longer, it grew better than a small mind.

She drew a curve before the crystal was finished. The curve showed how much better it should grow as its size and its lessons increased. It was not a promise that every mind would be wise. It helped the tutors plan their work and their crystals.

I like that a tutor can make a guess before the long drilling begins. I do the same with apples. A full basket does not tell me how sweet the cider will be, but it gives me a fair start.

Cass
%%
Letter: Fern to Sal, the boat is late
Dear Sal,

The boat is late. Not very late. Only late enough that the whole harbor is leaning on the wall and counting the sails, and the sails are not there.

I sold the eggs before noon, all forty dozen. Good money. I am telling you so you can be cross for me, since you are the only one who will do it properly.

Ansel's wife came down to the quay in her second-best shawl and asked me the time. I said the time was late. She said that was not the time she wanted. I gave her two eggs anyway, for her nerves.

If the boat is not in by dusk, I will walk home with the empty basket and swing it. You will hear me coming.

Your sister,
Fern
%%
Letter: Gale to Master Oran
Dear Master Oran,

You asked me to send news of the school room. The roof does not leak, though a drip lands in the chalk bowl when the wind comes from the mine hill. We moved the bowl to the other bench.

There are seven children in our room. I am the youngest, but I can read the store marks now. We have one slate between two of us. My partner is Bera. She writes neatly and leaves no space for my sums. I asked her to leave room. She said the sums should learn to stand closer together.

The new road brought a cart from Three Wells. It carried glass, salt and a box of books for the tutor. The mule was tired, so we gave it hay. It ate Bera's copy of the letter A from the window sill. Master Pell says this is not a proper excuse for losing school work.

Please send another copy when a cart returns to Vell.

Gale
%%
Letter: Oren to his sister
Dear Sela,

It is the founding day, the first day of spring, and all of Vell is out in the square. There are lamps at every corner and the Archive doors are open. I have been a clerk here one year now and I still stop at the door to read what the first keepers cut over it: We will keep everything we write.

The front hall smells of wax and paper. I file letters all day. A boy from Ambrook sent us a note about his bees. A woman at Saltreach sent a tally of boats. I put each one on its shelf and give it a number. It is quiet work and I like it.

For the festival the cooks made beetroot soup and a great pie of pumpkin. There was a stall of honey in little jars with cloth tops. I bought one for you. I will bring it when I next have leave.

The tutors walked through the square with their four apprentices behind them. The children ran alongside and called them by name. One old woman said she remembered when there was only one tower in the whole land. Now there are eleven, and crews are building more.

I hope the roads come your way soon. A tower on every hill would make the world small and kind at once.

Your brother,
Oren

P.S. The honey is in my desk. I will try not to eat it. I will probably eat it.
%%
Letter: Hob to Corin, a house for a mind
Dear Corin,

I have been asked to write to you, because the council of Kettle Ridge hopes you will take a trip in spring and see our new relay house. They say you know about big things, and a relay house is a big thing. Not as big as a ship, but bigger than a stable.

I am a horse keeper, so I will tell you what I saw, in the way I would tell it to a horse.

The house stands at the foot of the tower, on the ridge, with its back to the wind. It is built of cobblestone and deep stone, a thick wall, and a flat roof. A door of oak. Inside it is one room, high and long. In the middle, on a stand of stone, sits a crystal the size of a loaf of bread. It is a gray crystal. It does not glow. It does not hum. But when you stand near it, you feel as if someone is listening.

Around the stand, in rows, are the quickeners. They look like small gray boxes with fine lines. There are a hundred. They are kept in tanks of water, and the water is moved by a wheel that never stops. In winter, ice is cut from the pond and packed round them.

At the other end of the room is a desk, where the keeper sits. On the desk is a slate with a lamp above it. A message comes in by the redstone line from the tower, and the keeper reads it and gives it to the mind. The mind answers. The keeper writes the answer on the slate and sends it back up the line.

Apprentices on the ridge send their questions this way. It is faster than walking to the tutor. One asked how to tell a ripe beetroot. One asked how to lay a hedge. The answers came in a few minutes, in a plain hand, and were right.

I asked the keeper if the mind knows what it is saying. He said, "I would not say it does. But I would not say it does not." That is as much as anyone says.

What I like is that the house is warm. In the coldest part of winter I went in and sat down, and I stayed an hour. The water never freezes. Everyone is kind to the keeper, who brings a pie.

Sparrow, the filly, is thriving. She sleeps in the straw. I think she would like to see the relay house, too.

Come in spring. Bring your ship drawings. I will take you to see the mind, and then the foal.

Hob
Horse keeper, Kettle Ridge
%%
Letter: Ree to Jory, summer news
Dear Jory,

Your letter came up the Long Road with the salt. It said the mill is still standing, the miller is still complaining, and the flour is still grey. Here is my news, in the same order as yours, so you can check it against your own.

The fair at Copperhold was a fair. The bread prize came to me again, which the board says is a mistake. I gave the knife to my sister, and the ribbon went to the mayor's dog, who wears it at every stall now and looks as if he has won a war.

The bees came over the square at the second bell, the morning after the fair. Sal was at the honey stall and nearly fainted. Ama came up with her smoke pot and her veil, said good morning to the swarm, and took it down into a box with her bare hands. It is in the old tree behind the well now. The honey stall is sticky, and I am not allowed to complain, because the bees chose me, Sal says, and Sal is right.

Copperhold itself is well. The shaft head is busy. The copper is good on the second level, and Hesk says so, every spring and summer and most winters, so I have stopped believing him and started noticing that he is right. The kitchen at the gate has been feeding the men like kings.

The new road from the hill to the Long Road is open at last. The stone edge is in, and the torches stand every twelve blocks. The carters say it is the best road they have been on, and then they complain about the curve at the bottom, which they complained about before the road was built. I say the curve is the carter's. The road is the road.

The cheese judging was on the green. Garrow came second, and says the sun was to blame, and the judges, and the knife, which was his own fault. My blue came first, which I will not discuss except to say that the dog had nothing to do with it, or nearly nothing.

Jory, I have been thinking about the flour. You have been grinding grey for a month, and I know it is the stones, and not you. The stones are old. The race is full of weed. The sluice needs a new board, and the spoke that broke is waiting for its replacement from Ambrook. None of that is your fault. You are only the one who has to stand in the mill when the flour comes out grey, and be looked at by the bakers. I think you are doing that job well.

Come to the fair in autumn. Bring the good scale, and the flour from the old stones, the stuff you keep in the back for your own bread. I will buy a loaf, and pay for it in emeralds, and you will not laugh at me.

Your friend, who has the best bread in the district and the worst luck with ribbons,
Ree

P.S. The dog has been seen eating a whole wax comb. He is sick, and happy, and the mayor says it is the bees' fault. The bees say nothing.
%%
Letter: Ruel to Mab, the test box
Dear Mama,
Today I learned why the clerks take out pages. You would laugh. A drill is only as good as its pages, and a clerk who copies a page twice has made the mind learn that page twice, and so the mind thinks that page is the world.
So the clerks sort everything. Spoiled pages go in the fire. Copies go out. And some pages go in a box in the deepest room, and no mind is ever drilled on them. Those are the test pages. When a mind has learned its drill, the tutor gives it the test pages and watches what it does. If it does well on the test pages, it has learned something. If it does well only on the drill, it has only learned the drill.
Nessa says this is the most important thing she ever learned, and she says it at least once a week. She says a mind that passes its drill and fails the test is a clever parrot, and parrots do not go to the fields.
I asked her what the test pages are made of. She said they are made of things nobody will read anymore. Then she laughed and said that was a joke, and I should not write it down. So I am writing it down.
My own mind is in the second row. It is wrong about half the time on the test pages. It is right on the drill nearly every time. Nessa says that is normal. She says the next drill will be harder, and that is where the curve starts to matter.
Give Father my love and tell him the fox is not allowed in the hen house, whatever the fox thinks.
Your son,
Ruel
%%
Letter: Neri to Mab, the wheel mended

Dear Mab,

The wheel turned again this morning. Jory fitted the boards with the help you brought, and the mill pond ran over the old spoke while we worked. The new oak is plain, but it holds.

The children sang the apple song from the path. They sang the wrong verse twice, then sang the right one with great pride. Jory said the wheel turned faster when they sang. He said it in the way he says things he does not mean.

There was flour for the baker before noon. Jory gave me a small loaf for my help. I gave it to the children, who ate it without complaint. This is the best test of a loaf.

Thank you for lending the saw and for carrying the boards. I will return the saw after I oil its handle. Do not lend it to Halen until I have done so.

Neri
%%
Letter: Juna to Pell, news from Ambrook
Dear Pell,

Your letter came with the carter from the Brown Hen. I read it three times. Once for the news. Once for the ladle. Once because your hand gets worse when you are pleased. Tilly read the ladle part out loud to the hens.

Here is the news from home, bees first.

Three swarms in Swarm. One went into the well house, one into the old oak, and one onto Tilly's head. She stood still the whole afternoon, as you told her to, with her eyes shut. The bees were very polite. Old Moll next door took them off with a basket. Tilly has not washed her hair since. She says it is a medal.

The apple trees. We planted six more on the hill, which makes forty-one. The oldest has a grey branch. This spring the grey branch has blossom, for the first time in years. I did not want to say anything. I went and looked at it twice.

The road. The crew has laid cobblestone as far as the first stream. They put a stone bridge over it. Their rule is stone if you can, oak if you must. Eight of them sleep in our barn. The cook pays for the straw in bread, so we are rich in bread. They say there will be an inn a day apart all the way to Vell. Marda at the Brown Hen says she was first, and tells everyone who sits down.

The waymark. At the end of our lane there is now a stone pillar. It is three blocks high, with a torch on top. It has a 1 carved on it and an arrow to the Brown Hen. Tilly asks it the way every morning. It tells her the same each time. I told her that is the point of it.

The Archive. A clerk came through last week with a box and a list. The Archive at Vell wants everything people write: letters, songs, recipes, lists of who owes whom. They mean to keep it all. I gave him your mother's apple butter, copied out by me. Then he asked for your last letter. I said yes, if he copied it here and brought the first one back. He did, at our kitchen table, eating bread as he went. I think we are in the Archive now. I am a little proud.

He says the Archive is so young that the clerks know every record by name. You could read the whole of it in an afternoon, if you walked fast. He says that will not last.

Tilly asked about the helpers of copper and iron that the tutors have at Vell. He said there are four, and the children call them apprentices. Each does one thing, a row or a sort. Tilly has decided she wants one that carries buckets. You will take her to see them when the road is finished.

Elsa wrote about the hedge. I am sending cuttings with the next cart. Tell Barley I am cross with him. He will not mind, but I will feel better.

Come home by the new road. It is shorter, and there will be a torch every twelve blocks. The bed is cold, and I put out two bowls at supper again. I know you are not here. I do it anyway.

Keep the gate shut and the torches lit, wherever you are.

Your Juna
%%
Letter: Ivo to Bree and Dorrit, spring
Dear Bree and Dorrit,

This letter is for both of you, so you can fight about it in the right order.

The thaw came up the hill on the first morning of Blossom, and the whole town ran outside to look at it, the way they do. The snow went brown at the edges, then grey, then it was gone, except for a heap by the north well that the children are guarding. There is a stick in it that somebody's grandmother put there to measure. Nobody dares move the stick.

The barrels are fine. I tasted every one of them, which was a hard job, and I have a headache from the duty. The sharp ones are ready. The sweet ones will be ready when Dorrit stops making them sing at night. The spiders have finished the barn. They have divided it into rooms. I have decided not to sweep the rooms, out of respect.

At the mine, the shaft head is busy again. The men go down the stair in the morning with their lamps, and come up in the evening with their faces black. The cook gets them fed, and the count board gets a new line of names every day. Hesk says the copper is coming good on the second level. Hesk says that every spring, and every spring he is right, which is very irritating.

Clank has learned to stop at the bell. It took three days. On the fourth morning it heard the bell, stopped at the top of the stair with a full basket, and waited. Then the bell stopped too, and it went on. Hesk says it is a good apprentice. He says it without looking at it, which is how Hesk says anything he means.

The school at the east side of town has a new slate. The master wrote the first rule on it, and then wrote it again, because the children had been trying to sum the wheels of the carts and had got them all wrong. The first rule says: Count what is there. Then count again. Then tell the truth about the number. I thought that was better than most of the sums I had at school.

Cheese came up from Greer on the last cart, the one with the crack. It is good. Not as good as yours, Bree, but then nothing is. Greer sends her love. She says the blue came second at the judging again, and that the cow ate the rosettes.

The stove is lit at home every night, Dorrit. I come in from the cellar at dusk and put my hands to it, and I think of you two arguing over the spoon. It helps.

Some things I do not know, and I will say so, since you always ask. I do not know when the carts will stop complaining about the road. The carters say it is fine, and then say it is fine again, which is how they say it is not. I do not know why the bees are so cross this year. I do know that the cider is good, and that you should both come up the hill when the blossom is over, and have a glass, and be quiet for an hour.

Ivo

P.S. Bree, tell Jory the plank is holding. Dorrit, tell Hesk the spoon was not a weapon.
%%
Letter: Pell to Corin
Corin,
I am writing from the Brown Hen on the Long Road, and I have a question about a letter.
Three weeks ago I sent you a letter by the north cart, with the price of iron in it, and a drawing of a ship I thought you might like. You have not answered. I do not think you are cross with me, for I have not done anything yet.
So the letter is lost. Where? The cart driver says he gave it to the keeper at the relay tower at Three Wells. The keeper says it was never handed in. The tower keeper has a good name, so I believe him.
It could be that the letter fell off the cart. It could be that a dog ate it. It could be that the road took it. Hobb says the road takes a letter or two every year, and it is nothing to be afraid of. It does not sound like nothing.
I do not want to worry you. But I have heard that some of the northern relays are quiet, and that letters from there come slowly, or not at all. A man at the inn says it is just the weather. I would like to believe him.
If you got my letter, ignore this one. If you did not, I will send it again.
Pell
%%
Letter: Bel to Mira at Northpoint
Dear Keeper Mira,

I am Bel. I am nine and a half now. I write to you because you are the farthest keeper we have.

They built a big relay house at Three Wells. It is bigger than the whole square, with all three wells inside. The roof is glass. The big mind sits on a stand the size of a table. It is ringed by quickeners, and the quickeners are kept cool with ice brought down from the north in straw. In winter the ice is free. In summer it costs a lot of emeralds.

The tutors say a mind like that is too big for one tutor to check. That is why the council built the house around it, so the mind can be checked by many hands at once. They say a mind we cannot check is a mind we cannot trust. They say it as if it were a rule, like keep the torches lit.

The mind answers apprentices through the relays. A boy from Copperhold asked it if the stone was warm below the ninth gate. The mind wrote back. My father said it was a good answer. My mother said it did not answer at all. I have not read the letter. I am not sure I want to.

Your friend,
Bel

P.S. My mother says hello. She baked the honey bread you like, but we cannot send it. It would go hard.
%%
Letter: Tibb to Mother, copying room
Dear Mother,

I have been in the copying room for six weeks, and I have been sent to the bins only four times. The clerks say that is good. Oren says it is excellent. I think he is pleased with the bins.

The room is the brightest in the hill. The big window looks over the town, and the light comes in across eight long tables, so you can see every hair on a page. Behind the tables the shelves go back into the hill, row after row, cool and still. It smells of ink and dry stone. It does not smell of hens, and I miss that a little.

Every page goes on the table first. A clerk reads the first line. If the page is a copy of one we already have, it goes in the copy bin with a blue ribbon. If a word is smudged, or a line is in the wrong place, it goes in the spoiled bin with a red ribbon. Oren says red is for spoiled because red is for stop.

The good pages go into the drill boxes. Each box is numbered and sealed with wax, as the rules say, and the boxes go down the hill to the tutors' house, where the minds are drilled. I carry the boxes to the cart. They are heavier than they look, like most important things.

There is one box that never goes down the hill. It goes into the deepest room, on the bottom shelf, beside the oldest record in its oak box. Those pages are never drilled. Nobody reads them after they are written out, and that is the rule, and I did not understand the rule until Oren explained it.

I asked him why. He said that if a clerk reads a test page, the clerk might remember it, and a clerk who remembers a test page is as much a cheat as a copy in the drill. I laughed. Then I saw that he was not laughing, so I stopped.

I asked him where the drill pages came from, the old ones, and whose letters they were. He said that is not for us to know. He said we keep everything we write, and that was never the same as knowing where everything came from. I did not ask him again. He has a face that closes like a box when a question goes too far.

It is spring here. Outside the window the orchards are in blossom, and the carts go up and down the road all day with their wheels squeaking. The town smells of cut grass and bread. On my half day I walk round the lower wall and look at the valley. From the wall you can see the whole valley if the morning is clear, and the river looks like a sheet of copper.

Please send the wool socks, not the thin ones. The copying room is cool even in Blossom, and the cold comes up through the floor from the deep halls.

Give my love to the hens, and tell the fox to stay away from them. Tell Fenn the sheep wall should be built like a Three Wells wall, with the top row sticking out. He will know what I mean.

Your son,
Tibb
%%
Letter: Wren to Nessa, the storm year
Dear Nessa,

I have been putting off this letter all week, because I wanted to tell you something sensible about the storm, and I do not have anything sensible to say. So I will tell you what happened, and you can be sensible about it at Vell.

The wind came up the marsh in the middle of the night. It was not a great wind, as winds go. But it went on for a long time, and it came from every side at once, and it found every loose board on the boardwalk and every shingle on the sheds. The water rose over the lower path, and then over the second, and by morning the healing house was the only dry roof in the village. The rest of us sat in it.

I had eleven people in beds and six on the floor. Ruth brought in two boys from the weir who had been out since dusk in a boat with no oars. Hob came in carrying a goose, which bit him, and then bit Moss, who was carrying the broth tray, and then sat down on the floor very happily and ate the bread off the tray. Nobody could stop laughing, even the boys with the cuts.

Moss did well. It carried the broth in both hands all night. It did not spill once, though the floor was tilting. It sat with the boys by the fire and did not move, and when the older one asked it a question, it answered by doing the next thing, which was to pass him a cup. That is the only answer an apprentice can give, and it was the right one.

I keep thinking about the jars. Eighty of them on the high shelf in the back room, and the shelf came away from the wall, and not one broke. Moss picked them up one at a time and put them back in their places, by the labels. It took most of the night. I am going to stop talking about it now. I am going to go to bed.

Please write back when you can. Tell me the tutors' house is dry. Tell me Vell is still on its hill.

Wren
Healing house, Lowmarsh
%%
Letter: Nessa to Cress
Cress,

Your letter came by cart from Three Wells, and I read it standing in the cart yard. Sit down. I am not cross. You did nothing wrong that I did not do first.

My first barn was a stable at Copperhold, in my second year. My mind sorted apples from pears. At Vell it scored ninety-nine. In the stable it put every apple in the pear pile, because the Vell apples had been red and the Copperhold apples were green. I stood in the straw and the miners laughed. One of them asked for his pears back.

So here is what happened to Scoop, as plainly as I can say it.

A mind learns whatever helps it to be right. Nobody tells it which part to learn. At Vell the cloth helped: brown sack, wheat; white sack, flour. The grain helped too, but the cloth was easier and louder. So Scoop learned both, and listened mostly to the cloth. At the ridge the cloth said nothing, and the grain was too quiet to carry the day.

The test box did not warn you, because it was the same as the drill box in the way that mattered: brown and white. A test box is pages the mind has never seen. It must also be pages like the ones the mind will meet. Those are two different things. You tested the first and forgot the second.

What to do this week:
1. Gather every kind of sack on the ridge: patched, dyed, inside out. Fill them from the mill.
2. Drill Scoop on those, a thousand sacks, with the right answer shown after it has answered.
3. Make a new test box of sacks Scoop has never seen, from a farm it has never seen.
4. Test it in the barn, by lantern, not at the mill by daylight.
5. Write down which sacks it got wrong, and why you think so.

The bowls were a good idea. Tell Ida's girl so from me. A child who looks at what the mind looks at, instead of what the tutor expected, is worth a dozen of us. Put her idea in your book as: take away what misleads, and the rest can be heard.

You asked if you should stay. Yes. You have a barn story now. Every tutor needs one. I have the stable. Now you have the sacks.

"Never send an untested mind to the fields." I say it so often that I forget the second half. Test it where it will work.

I am pinning a note to the door of the tutor house. It says: a sack is not its cloth.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Oren to Nella, four helpers
Dear Nella,

I am glad the jar arrived without leaking. The lid was made by a careful hand.

You asked for a plain account for the children. The first tutors at Vell made four helpers of copper and iron. Each had a mind held in a crystal. The tutors showed each mind its task again and again. A crystal learns from what it is shown, but no one wrote down why.

The helpers could not take any task they pleased. One could tend a row. Another could sort. That was the work it had learned.

I will bring the account with me. Please keep the children from touching the old drill box. The latch is loose.

Oren
%%
Letter: Fern to Mira
Dear Mira,

I am at the stall with the eggs in their straw and the sun on the north market for the first time since Reaping, and I am writing to you in between customers, because you will want to hear about it before the carts take it up the north stair.

The market is open. The first stalls are up. Ruby Oke has brought the honey and the bread from Ambrook, and she has a new cloth on the table, which is blue and has a lot of opinions. The carters from Kettle Ridge have brought the wool, and the carters from Saltreach have brought salt, and a box of dried fish that nobody will name.

The horse is back, and everybody has come to see her. She stands at the foot of the stair with the children round her, and she puts her nose into their coats and takes the sugar out of their pockets. I have told the children that is not allowed, and the horse has told me it is allowed, and the horse has won.

Gault and Harrow have both been to the stall this morning. They did not speak to each other. They bought eggs from me, one after the other, and they each paid the exact price, and they each looked at the fence through the market window while they waited for their change. I have never seen two men so careful about a sum.

Lantern came down with the stones this morning. It set them out in a line on the north road, one after another, and it did not say a word. Then it stood up and looked at the fence, and it looked at the oak, and it went back up the stair. Gault and Harrow stood at the fence for an hour and said nothing. Then they both went home, and the fence is still there, and the stones are still in their line, and nobody has moved either.

I will not tell you what I think of the fence. I will tell you that the eggs are very good this spring, and that the hens have decided the sun is theirs, and that the honey has come up from Ambrook in perfect condition, and that the bread has a crust like a roof.

Come down for the spring fair. Bring the mare if you can, and nobody will mind if she eats the bread.

Fern
%%
Letter: Hob to Tam, the new house
Dear Tam,

They have started the relay house at the foot of our tower. Stone from Copperhold, cut in blocks as big as a calf. It will be done by Thaw, they say.

I am not worried. I only wish to know where I will put the horses. The new wall comes right up to the paddock gate, and Clover, who is due any day, is a mare who does not like to be hurried past a wall.

Please tell the masons to leave me a gap.

Hob
%%
Letter: Lida to Finch
Dear Finch,

Your ladder is still in our yard. The mare has learned to eat from the top rung. Please take it before she learns the rest.

The roof over the south room held through last night's rain. The roof over the pantry did not. I put a bowl under the leak, and the bowl is now full of roof dust.

Can you mend it before the fish sellers come for supper? I will make soup. Bring your own spoon. Yours has a crack.

Lida
%%
Letter: Bryn to Tam
Dear Tam,

The bay horse has learned to open the feed bin with his nose. Please mend the latch before he learns to open the flour chest.

He also stood in the well trough this morning. I asked him to get out. He looked at me as if I had put the trough there for his comfort.

The wheat is high, and the road is dry. I can bring you the spare harness after the next market. Keep it out of the rain this time.

Bryn
%%
Letter: Pip to Tam, the fence
Tam,

I am writing this and leaving it on your bench because when I say it out loud you laugh and then I forget it.

The fence.

You moved it. Not much. Two posts. I know it was you because the old line is still in the grass and the new line is not, and because you always dig on the slant.

The fence is on the line the way it has always been. My father put his end where it is and your father put yours and they met in the middle and shook hands on it. That is what the stones say. There is a stone under the hedge with a mark on it.

I do not want the top two rows of your wheat. I want the fence where it was.

If you think I am wrong, come and stand at the stone with me and we will look at it together before the light goes.

Pip
%%
Letter: Ruth to Bram, the homecoming
Dear Bram,

You are home. I have seen you walk up the lane with your pack on your back and your hat in your hand, and I have not stopped smiling since. The children have stopped asking when you will come. Now they are asking what you brought.

I know you are tired. Sit down. The bread is on the table and the soup is by the fire. Eat before you speak. You always said that was the rule of the Long Road, and I am holding you to it.

The boy at the gate was very proud of himself. He carried your pack up the lane with both arms, and he says he will carry it every day now. He does not know that you have two more days of walking in your legs. Please do not tell him yet.

The house is clean. The yard is swept. The goats are in the pen, the hens are laying, and the cat has been sitting on your chair every evening, looking at the door. She has not moved. You may have to ask her nicely.

Tell me about Vell when you have rested. Tell me about the Archive, and the clerks, and whether the cake was as good as you said. I want to hear the whole thing, slowly, with the spoons in your hand. I have been listening for your voice in the lane for six weeks, and now I can stop.

Welcome home, love.

Ruth

P.S. Father has taken the new roof off the barn to make it straight. Do not look at it until morning. He wants it to be a surprise, and it is a surprise, I promise.
%%
Letter: Opal to Carys, the hall is shut
Dear Carys,

You asked for news of the hall, and I have some, and none of it is good.

The tutors' hall at Vell shut its doors on the first of Frost. The council will not pay the tutors this year. They say that Kester's note proves a crystal cannot learn anything worth the bread. Kester says it proves only that one crystal cannot do one small thing. Nobody is listening, because a small thing said quietly is easy to ignore, and a large thing said by a council is not.

Nine tutors were paid last year. Three have gone home to their farms. Two have gone to Copperhold to carry ore, which is honest work, but not what they trained for. Four are still in Vell, living on what the town gives them. I leave wool on their steps.

The drill yard is empty. The four helpers of copper and iron that were the first in the hall stand where they were last drilled, in a row at the far end, still and dim. Nobody has the emeralds to oil them. The children go and look at them on the way home from school. One of them asked me if they are sleeping. I said yes. I could not think what else to say.

I have been busy. Winter is when babies come, and the snow does not stop them. Last week I walked up the north road to a farm in the dark, with a lantern and a cold nose, and delivered a boy at the second hour of the night. His father wept and his mother asked for tea.

Kester is calm. He says a long quiet is not the same as an ending. He says crystals are patient, and so are the people who understand them, and that one day somebody will try two crystals in a row and see what happens. I asked him what that meant. He said he did not know. He said that is why it is worth trying.

Come at the thaw if you can. Bring the children. I will have a loaf.

Your Opal
%%
Letter: Oren to Ruth, moving house
Dear Ruth,

We are moving. I am writing before the cart comes, so you do not hear it from Ulla at the market. She will have heard it from me and got it wrong.

It is not far. Only up the hill, to the new rooms by the copying hall. The clerks who work the deep shelves are being given the top floor, where there is more light and the stairs are shorter. My knees are very glad.

The house by the farm has been good to us. Forty years is a long time for a clerk to live in one place. The apple tree by the gate will stay. It is too big to carry, and the new owner has promised to keep the bees.

Please come on the day of the move. You are the only one who can tell the cart driver which way is north. He is convinced it is the road.

Bring your sister. Bring the good plates. Do not bring the goat.

Oren
%%
Letter: Lise to Oren
Dear Oren,

The new road reached our hamlet in spring. It is packed earth, with a cobblestone edge. We have a bridge over the stream now. The children keep counting the stones and losing their place.

A zombie came to the gate last night. We kept the torches lit. It stood by the new waymark until dawn, then wandered off. I have told the children not to count it as a traveler.

Please send a copy of the lesson about even numbers. I want to read it to the older pupils.

From Lise
%%
Letter: Pell to Mave, Dove is home
Dear Mave,
Dove is home, and she is happy, and so is the cart, which is very surprised.
I took her over the bridge at Saltreach as you said. I walked her by the rail with my hand on her neck, and she did not look at the water once. Then at the Brown Hen she tried to go into the inn yard, and the stable boy had to pull her out by the bridle, and she has never been so embarrassed in her life.
She ate the oats, both handfuls, and then the apple, and then the carrot that the children at Three Wells gave her, which I did not know about. The children are very fond of her too. A girl asked me if Dove was a grey cloud that had decided to come down. I said yes.
On the hill above the Halfway I let her run, just a little. She ran the way she likes, with her head up and her mane out, and I shouted, and so did she. I think she enjoyed it more than I did. I am too old to run.
Thank you for the loan. Thank you for the honey, which is in the cart in a jar with a red cloth tied over it, and which I have not opened, because I am not a fool.
Your friend,
Pell
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, first snow
Dear Mira,

The first snow came last night. It was early this year. Pip ran out before breakfast and stood in it with his arms out, like a scarecrow with a pumpkin head. The wheat stubble went white. The beetroot rows are done, all but the bottom field. The bottom field can wait.

The windmill squeaked all night. I keep meaning to grease it. I keep not greasing it.

How is Northpoint? Is the snow deep there yet? Do the foxes come close to the tower in the cold? You said once they do. I think of you up there with your lamp and your ninety rungs.

Pip asks about your lantern every week. He wants to know if it is heavy. I said ask her yourself, write a letter. He is shy of the post. So here I am asking for him. Is the lamp heavy?

We had word from Vell about the great drills. The clerks want letters. Any letters, they say, so the reading minds can learn from them. I have a box of yours from the old years. Shall I send them? Some are only about the weather. Some are not.

Write soon. Wear two coats.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the cold week
Dear Mira,
The cold came down off the north on the second of Longnight and has not gone back up. The windmill squeaks on every turn, which is company of a kind. The pond is hard enough to stand on at the edges, and Bessie will not cross it, so the milk is late every morning and I am late with it.
The pigs have built a nest in the straw by the barn wall, nine of them in a pile, and when I go to feed them they do not get up. They only grunt. Pip says the grunt means thank you, and I think it means go away. Pip is right more often than I am, so I am learning to say thank you back.
The bees are in their hive by the flowers, all of them in one ball, shivering. I put my hand on the hive. It was warm in the middle and cold at the edge. That is how they keep the queen alive, Pip says. It stood with me a long time and did not touch anything.
The Kettle Inn has been very quiet. The innkeeper says the travelers have all gone home, except one, who is staying in the back room and eating the soup. The soup is good, and the traveler is no trouble, so nobody has asked him to leave.
I sent a message down the relay to Vell last week, about the seed order. It cost five emeralds, and it reached Vell in a morning. Dace says that is the best value in the district.
A carter came by from Copperhold with coal, and says the ridge road is full of drifts past the mill. The wind plays with the lamp at the end of our lane. It flickers when it likes and steadies when it likes. I have stopped trying to tell it which.
Keep the torches lit. Love from the ridge,
Tam
%%
Letter: Nessa to Oren
Dear Oren,

You asked me to write down what Isla found, in plain words, for the Archive. You say that in a hundred years some clerk will want to know, and will find the letter and be glad. I hope so. I will try.

First, the old rule. When we drill a mind, it has a size, which is the room in its crystal, and it has a drill, which is the writing we show it, and a time, which is how long we drill. A mind that is bigger, drilled longer, on more writing, does better. Every tutor knew this a little. We did not know how much better.

Isla tried it in a careful way. She grew many small minds, each a different size. She drilled each on more and more writing. She tested each on pages it had never seen. Each time, she counted the mistakes.

When she drew her points on a slate, they made a line. A gentle curve. The mistakes go down as the size goes up, and as the drill grows longer, and as the writing grows. They go down by the same kind of step each time. Double the size, and the mistakes go down by a certain share. Double the writing, the same.

Because the curve is smooth, a tutor can draw it using only the small minds and then read off where a big mind would land. A mind the size of a loaf, drilled on all the archive, can be guessed at before a single crystal is grown. We can know what it is worth before we pay.

This matters for the councils. The councils have been asking whether big minds are worth their price. The curve says yes. A mind ten times the size does measurably better, and one a hundred times does better still. The curve does not say when it stops. We do not know that.

What the curve does not say is why. I do not know why a bigger crystal learns more. I do not know why more writing helps, beyond that it is more to learn from. These are questions for the tutors after me.

The councils have already voted. Relay houses will be built at the foot of the towers, one by one, to hold the big minds. Vell's will be first. The stone is being cut.

I am sending this by the next cart. I would not trust it to the relay, for it is long.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Vesper to Wren
Wren,
Did the Saltreach boat come back? Dov says the Heron is three days late and nobody will say it aloud.
We stood on the headland last night with torches until the stars came out. I left a lantern on the rock. Dov says it is useless, because the boat is too far. I say a lantern has never harmed a boat.
If they are lost, nothing I can say will matter. If they are late, they will want soup. I have started a pot of fish stew, which I have no idea how to make. Tell me what goes in.
I am sorry to write about myself. You know boats. I know headaches. We do what we can.
Vesper
Under it, in a different hand: It came in at dawn with the tide. The mast was cracked and the cook had a black eye. Nobody will say how. Everyone is well. The stew was good. Wren
%%
Letter: Dorrit to Ivo, the long winter
Dear Ivo,

You went down the hill to sell the cider, and the snow came up the hill to sell itself. It came in Leaffall and it has not gone yet. The road to Vell was shut for thirty days, which you will say is a lie, but I counted.

The miners kept the stove in the kitchen at the mine gate burning day and night. The cook says she has never made so much stew in her life. Every man who came up from the Deep Works had two bowls and a joke. Hesk had three bowls and no joke, which is how we knew he was happy.

The children sledged down the top steps on boards from the tool store. The count board got a new name written on it in chalk every morning. Somebody wrote SNOW in capitals, and nobody rubbed it out for a week.

We had the apples from the cellar all winter. The barrels you left are still full. The spiders are very pleased, as you will see when you come home and find the barn has become a town.

I am keeping the stove at home lit for you. Come up the hill before the thaw, or the cider will be sour and so will I.

Your sister,
Dorrit
%%
Letter: Hild to Edda
Edda,
I cannot come on market day. The mill wheel at Kettle Ridge has broken, and every hand is wanted to carry the sacks by cart until Tam gets it mended. I would rather be carding with you.
I will come the week after. I will bring the blue thread, two jars of honey and a cheese. The cheese is for Garn, who says my cheese is too sharp. I will see if he still says so.
Tell the children that Pip fell into the ditch yesterday and came up with a frog on its head. I have never laughed so hard.
Hild
%%
Letter: Ossa to Pell, the candle prices
Dear Pell,
You asked for my prices, and I have them here, though I do not like to give them.
Tallow candle, plain, by the dozen: 3 emeralds. Beeswax, by the dozen: 8. Beeswax with a scent of apple, by the dozen: 10. The scent is not worth two emeralds, but people like it, and who am I to stop them?
The miners buy the plain ones, by the hundred. They burn them fast. They say a candle is a good friend, and a poor investment.
Now, the bet. Hesk's new apprentice came this week. Hesk and Clank have been drilling it in the yard. It carries, it stays, it comes when told. It broke a tray of my best candles on the first day. It was not its fault. The tray was at the edge of the table. Hett the dog moved it.
Fenn at the inn bet it would break within a month. It has not. I win a pie.
Please send word on the price of honey. If it is cheap, I will make more wax.
Ossa
%%
Letter: Pell to his mother at Ambrook
Dear Mother,

The winter market at Kettle Ridge was the best I have seen. I set up my stall by the well in the yard and sold wool and copper pots and a crate of apples from your orchard. The apples went first. Everyone said they were the best at the fair. I said I knew, because my mother grew them.

There was a festival on the last night. A bonfire on the ridge, and torches all along the edge of the fields, and a song the children sang about the tower on the hill. A man named Tam won a prize for a beetroot as big as a cat's head. He held it up and everyone cheered. His apprentice, Pip, stood by the cart and squeaked. The children loved Pip.

I sold a jar of your honey to a clerk from Vell. He said he would keep it for his sister and not eat it. I did not believe him. I sold the rest to a baker with flour on her sleeves.

The roads are good now. There is a waymark with a torch every twelve blocks, and an inn a day apart. The innkeeper at the ridge gave me a bed and a hot pie.

I will be home before the thaw. Save me an apple from the oldest tree.

Your son,
Pell
%%
Letter: Sella to Ree
Dear Ree,

The saddle is on our fence. I found it there this morning, with a small stone holding down the strap. You could have knocked at the door. We were awake. The horse was awake too, and she knows how to knock with her nose.

I am glad the roof is dry. My brother says you should have laid two stones, not one. My brother says this about every roof, even the roof over his own head. It still leaks.

The cap was made for you. I did not expect the horse to help with the green patch, but she has given it a fine fringe. Wear it when you walk to the relay house. The path is muddy near the well, and the cap will be easier to see if you fall in.

I have saved three apples for you. They are on the shelf above the flour. Do not let the horse see them. She has learned to open the gate by pushing the lower board.

Will you come to supper after your watch? I have beetroot soup and a loaf. My brother has promised not to speak about roofs until after the meal.

Sella
%%
Letter: Hesk to Cass, the warm stone
Cass,

You asked me what the miners are saying. Here it is, plain, because you would only ask again.

The stone on the fifth level is warm. Not hot. Warm, the way a loaf is warm an hour after it comes out. You put your hand on the wall at the far face and it stays warm when you take the hand away. Ola says it is the lamp. The lamp is on the other side of the rail. Ola says it is the lamp anyway, and she is not stupid.

We stopped going past the lift station on the sixth level at the start of Thaw. Not by order. By agreement. The men agreed in the kitchen one night, and nobody wrote it down. Bram says he will go lower when the stone tells him it is cold. He has not gone lower.

Bram also says he hears a hum at night, through the rails, like somebody singing with their mouth shut. I say Bram hears things. I also say I have heard it once, lying on my bunk with the window open, and I did not like it, and I did not get up to look.

Clank has been sent back up for the rest of the spring. It stands at the shaft head and sorts the copper, and it does not go down. Nobody told it to stop going down. It just stopped, the way it stops at a cart that is too full.

Do not put this in a letter to the Archive. Put it in your own book, in your own hand, and keep it there. If anybody wants it, they can come up the hill and ask me. I am still here, and I still know how to get down the shaft.

Hesk
Copperhold, the mine gate
%%
Letter: Corin to Pell
Dear Pell,

The relay house at Saltreach is finished. We raised the last stone on the ninth of Apple, and the big mind came up from Vell by cart, packed in straw like a crate of eggs. The sailor who drove it said he had never carried anything so heavy that looked so much like nothing.

It stands on its stand at the foot of the tower, in a room with a window to the sea. The crystal is the size of a loaf of bread, and grey as a cloud with sun behind it. Round it stand the quickeners, ringed in a circle, and we keep them cold with water from the harbor. Twice a day we empty the pans and fill them again. On cold mornings there is steam, and the room smells of wet stone.

How it works, as the tutors tell it, is this. The big mind does not live in the tower. It lives in the crystal. The relay lamps carry its answers out along the coast, tower to tower, and a small mind in an apprentice asks it a question and hears it answered. A tower is only a tall way of passing a letter. The big mind is the reader.

Corin
%%
Letter: Pell to Oren, the roads
Dear Oren,

I have walked the Long Road from end to end this spring, and I have news for your map, which is still too empty in the north.

The road is open all the way from Ambrook to Vell, except for two bad stretches by the marsh and one at the river, where the bridge is a plank and a wish. The carters are calling the river bridge the Wish, and they are not joking.

There are inns now a day apart. The Brown Hen is the newest, at the crossing below Three Wells. Marda and her husband built it of timber and clay, with a hearth in the middle and nineteen beds. Halfway between Three Wells and Vell is the Halfway Inn, which is older than anyone's grandmother and has a riddle board by the fire. The riddle this month is: what has a mouth but cannot eat? Nobody has got it. I have not got it either.

The waymarks are up. Stone pillars, three blocks high, with a torch on top and a figure cut in the face. I counted them from Ambrook to the Brown Hen. Forty-two.

The relay towers are going up along the road. There is one at the top of the hill above Three Wells, and one above the mill pond at Ambrook, with its door made of old oak. From the top of each tower you can see the next one, if the weather is clear. A lamp blinks from one to the next. I sent you a message from Ambrook, and it arrived before I did.

Your friend, Pell
%%
Letter: Wren to Emmet, honey and news
Dear Emmet,

Moss has gone up to you with the long ladder and strict instructions about the honey. I told Moss the honey is for you to give me, not for Moss to carry. We will see what happens.

The cough is better this week. Two of the children are up and running about. The old man at the ford is sitting in the sun again. His daughter had her baby on the ninth of Swarm, a girl, small and loud. They have called her Reed, after the beds. The mother is well. She ate a whole bowl of beetroot soup and asked for another. That is a good sign.

If the bees go to the hollow oak, wait for me. Do not smoke out the wasps alone. You are too old to run from wasps. You run like a man carrying a sack of turnips.

Come to the healing house on market day and bring the honey. I will have bread.

Wren

P.S. Moss says the bees are in the tree still. Moss says they are very angry. Take care.
%%
Letter: Dell to Wren, the cow
Dear Wren,
Our brown cow has stopped eating. She stands by the reeds with her head down and does not even look at the clover, which you know is a bad sign. Her nose is dry. Her eyes are wet. The boy says she is sulking. I say she is sick.
Please come when you can. Bring the jar of willow bark, and whatever you use for the bloat. I will pay in cheese, the good cheese, the one Ann is hiding from me.
Your neighbor,
Dell
%%
Letter: Oren to Sorrel, the play
Dear Sorrel,

Marta tells me the Three Wells school wants to give a play at the end of summer, and that you are short of ideas. I have one. Write a play about the barn.

It is a good story for children. Six apprentices stand in a field with a pile of planks and no instructions. The first act is the plan. The second act is the cart in the mud. The third act is the barn.

Do not give the apprentices any lines. They do not speak, and the children will enjoy the quiet. Let the children hold up the cards instead: fetch planks, haul, build, store. The big mind at the relay house is a part for your tallest child. Put a lantern in the child's hand, a bench under the feet, and a very loud voice.

The cart can be the smallest child, under a blanket. The mud can be Pell, who will do it for nothing.

I will come if the Archive lets me. I will bring my own chair. I do not trust the benches.

Oren
%%
Letter: Wren to Bel
Dear Bel,

Nella brought your fair letter to the healing house. She says you won the prize for the neatest lantern. I am glad. A green pane is a fine choice for a winter lantern, though the frogs have not sent me their thanks.

The fair was busy even in the cold. People came from Three Wells, Kettle Ridge and the Long Road. Pell sold flour by the sack and complained that everyone wanted a smaller sack for the same price. He complained while selling every one.

Moss carried the lanterns from the school house to the square. It walked carefully, even when the snow caught on its feet. One lantern tipped in the cart, but Moss caught it before it fell. The glass was safe. Moss brought it to my house afterward, and I wiped the snow from its copper hands.

You asked whether the frogs sleep through winter. I do not know. They hide in the mud when the water grows cold. We leave them alone. Last year one came out during a thaw and sat on the doorstep for an hour. It looked as if it had come to ask for soup.

I am writing this beside the well. The water is clear, and the jars are in order. Moss has made new labels. The jar marked cough syrup holds cough syrup. The jar marked honey holds honey. I have checked both.

Keep your lantern in a dry place until spring. Tell Nella I still have the oak pegs for the boardwalk. The work can wait for a warmer morning.

With care,
Wren
%%
Letter: Greer to Pell, the new road
Dear Pell,

You will be pleased to hear the new road reaches the ridge at last. It comes up from Three Wells in a long curve, with a stone edge on the outside and packed earth in the middle. There is a torch on a post every twelve blocks, as you asked. The post by my gate has a torch that Hal lit too early. It is still burning, and the moths think it is a festival.

The first cart up it came in Longday, with a crate of lamp glass for the Vell tower and a hat box with no hat in it. The carter says the box was for a hat he forgot. I think he forgot the hat on purpose, because he does not trust it on the road.

There are four inns on the road so far. One of them is only a barn with a sign. The sign says the Halfway Inn, which is confusing, because it is not halfway to anything. The waymarks are up as far as the first bend. Each has a figure from 0 to 9, and an arrow to the next inn, and the little stones on top that travelers leave. Nobody has explained the stones to me, and I have not asked. They are white, and warm from the sun. I have started leaving one myself.

A crow has taken a liking to the top of the torch post. It sits up there and looks down at the carts like the mayor of Three Wells, and the carters bow to it, out of habit.

The apples along the road are ripening already, although it is only Swarm. The orchard at Ambrook sent a cart of early ones up the ridge, with a note from Linnet: Eat one, and then you will know why we are proud. We ate one. We are very proud.

The melon at my gate was the biggest on the ridge this year. Ama says so, and Ama does not say things she has not measured. It has gone to the market now, and the market is pleased, and the melon has not been asked how it feels about that.

We had the cheese judging on the green, as always. My blue came second. The judge was Hester the cow, who was not asked, and who ate the rosettes. Nobody could say that was unfair.

Hal's new apprentice, Sprig, carried twelve cheese boards across the green without one falling off. It stopped by the green when told, and it said nothing at all, which the judge said was the best a board could ask for.

Pell, I know you are on the road most of the summer, and that your ledger is the only wife you have time for. But come up when the road is finished. Bring the good salt, and any news you have that is not from the carters. I want to hear it from you.

Your friend, who has the cheese,
Greer

P.S. The blue is ready. It is not for the carters.
%%
Letter: Finch to Jory
Dear Jory,

The mare is back in her stall, brushed and fed. She carried the oak boards without a complaint. She did stop once to stare at a fish laid out on the quay. I think she was checking whether it was a very flat horse.

I mended the shed latch too. It closes now, unless someone closes it with the old wooden spoon you keep beside the door. That spoon is too wide for the gap. I have put it on the shelf.

The pantry roof is sound. Lida says the room smells of warm oak, which is better than the smell of a wet sack. She gave me soup and a heel of bread. The soup was good. The bread could have stopped a door.

Thank you for lending the mare. I will bring the oats back tomorrow. I took the wrong sack at first, but I noticed before she ate any flour. I have placed the white sack by your door.

Finch
%%
Letter: Cass to Iven, winter stores
Dear Iven,

The cider is in the stone jars now. I left two by the door for your house, as promised. Keep them off the floor. The boards are cold there, and the jars cracked last winter.

A zombie came to our gate after dark. It pushed at the latch while I held the torch. I was glad of the thick gate, and gladder when it wandered off toward the harbor wall.

The well ran dry this morning. I have sent for water from the lower street. Please bring the empty jars back when you can. I need them for the next pressing.

Cass
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Letter: Mave to Pell, the last jar
Dear Pell,
The last of the dark honey is in a jar on my kitchen shelf, with a label that says Heather for Pell, Do Not Argue. I have kept it back for you. It is the best of the year, and I know you will argue anyway.
The grey mare can have the carrot from my garden, if she comes past again. Tell her she is a good girl and a fool on the bridge, and that the second is not her fault.
The frost is coming. I can feel it in my knees, and in the hives, which have gone quiet in the mornings. The bees are sealing the last of the comb, and they do not come out until the sun is well up. I have wrapped the hives in straw.
Write when you are home. I will be here, with the kettle on, and the bees asleep.
Mave
%%
Letter: Bel to the Archive
Dear Oren,

I heard about the wall at Vell that a creeper blew up. My teacher Sorrel said it was at the drill yard and a boy from Kettle Ridge was counting blocks and forgot the torches. Is that true? I want to know because I count blocks too and I forget things.

We had a creeper at the school house. It came up by the east well and stood by the door the children painted. Nobody was there because it was Longday and the school was shut. It blew a hole in the wall right next to the painted door. The door is fine. The wall has a hole. Dace says the hole is how spiders get in, so they will fill it with deep stone and make the top row stick out.

I think they should leave the hole small and put a window in it. Then the children could look out at the well. I told Dace. He said: Bel, it is a wall. I said it could be a wall with a window. He said he would think about it. He has not put the window in yet.

Here is what I want to know. When the creeper blew up the wall at Vell, did the apprentices run? Pip says his did not. Mine would run. I would tell it to run. Is there a drill for running?

If there is a drill for running, I would like to learn it. I am very good at running.

From Bel, age ten, Three Wells

P.S. My grandmother says hello. She says the buckets were heavier in her day.
%%
Letter: Hazel to Pell, the first snow
Dear Pell,

I have three things to tell you, and one to show you, so sit down, wherever you are.

First, the snow. Fenn came down the north road on the twenty-eighth of Melon with his cart and a bucket. The bucket was packed in straw. Inside the straw was snow. Real snow, Pell, in summer, from the north pass. Fenn says it is the first snow of the year on the pass, and that it is early. Fenn says everything is early. He said it at our wedding, too.

The children at the inn went quiet when they saw it. Sorrel held a handful until her fingers went red. Then she tasted it and said it tasted of nothing. Gil put the rest in the cold cellar, beside the milk. It had all melted by the third day.

Second, the riddle. Gil put a new riddle on the board by the door. He copied it off the Halfway board, so he says it is his now. What has teeth, but cannot bite? Gil says the answer is comb. I say card, because a card has teeth, and a card has carded every fleece on this road. A comb has never carded anything in its life.

We asked the travelers to vote. Nine said comb. Seven said card. Three said sheep, which is wrong and rude. One old man said Gil's mother, and was put out of the room.

I say I won. Gil says I cheated, by bringing my own cards to the table. He may be right. I brought them to show people what a card is.

Third, the lamp. Oren's letter came on Fenn's cart, folded very small, with a long note about the archive and its roof. He says the archive has filed the blinks under Stuck Lamps, and that the box is not large. He asked Garran to copy any blink that comes again. He also says the archive does not guess. Garran was very cross about that.

It has been quiet for four nights. Garran still sits on the step at dusk, just in case.

Oren also says a good fleece is four emeralds in the Vell market, not three. I told him three was fair. I was wrong. Do not tell him I said it.

And the thing to show you, which you must come home to see: Sorrel carded her first whole fleece alone. It is lumpy. It is hers. She wrote her name on the bag, and the S faces the wrong way, and she is very proud of it.

I will be home before the apples are picked. Keep the torches lit at the Ambrook bridge. Mind the plank.

Love,
Hazel
The Brown Hen, on the Long Road
%%
Letter: Wren to Pell
Dear Pell,

Your cart came through Lowmarsh before the snow covered the open road. Thank you for the salt and the two sacks of flour. The fish weir is still working, though the water runs slow under the ice. We have enough food for the sick beds and for Moss, who says a healer must eat well to stay useful.

I have paid the old debt for the wool in emeralds. Nella counted them twice, because Moss had written cough syrup on the jar. They were all there. I have told Moss that money is not medicine, even when it is kept beside the well.

I am sending you a jar of honey from the hives near the boardwalk. The lid is tied down with a strip of clean cloth. Do not put it on the cart seat. Last winter a jar slid off there and reached Three Wells before the cart did.

The winter fair at Three Wells is next month, if the road stays clear. Nella says she will bring her children and their glass lanterns. They have made one with a green pane and one with a yellow pane. The smallest child says the green one is for frogs. I think the frogs will accept the prize.

Please bring back two bundles of dry reeds if you can. Wren's house needs new mats for the beds. Moss has promised to weave them, but the last mat had one end wider than the other. It still kept the draft away. We shall call that good work.

Wren
%%
Letter: Juna to her son Pim, the flood
Dear Pim,

The river came up in the night. It is down now. The cows are fine, the hens are fine, and the pig is sulking on the hill, which is what pigs do after a flood.

The water came over the low field and up to the back step. I put the sacks along the door and Father sat on the stair with the lamp. We did not sleep much. Your sister slept through it all, and woke up cross that she had missed the fun.

The barn lost its straw. The garden lost its beans. The path to the mill is gone under a mud that smells of river. Come home and bring your boots.

Your mother,
Juna

P.S. Your bed is dry. I kept it dry. I used the old blanket.
%%
Letter: Wynn to Juna
Dear Juna,

You asked what happens on the road in autumn. So here it is.

The Brown Hen holds a harvest fair every Leaffall, and this year I was here for it. Marda put out long tables on the common and lit lamps all round the yard. There was beetroot soup and baked apples and bread from Three Wells. Pell came and sold honey from Ambrook and quarreled about the price with everyone in a friendly way.

There was a contest for the best apprentice. I did not know such a thing existed. Three of them stood in a row by the drill board and did what they were told. One fetched a bucket. One built a small wall from a pattern on the board. One stayed when told to stay, for a long time, while the children ran round it. The children liked that one best. The staying apprentice won.

A tutor came from Vell and gave a talk about the reading minds. He said the big minds cut words into common pieces now, so the same window holds far more. He drew it on a board with chalk, a word cut into slices. Most of the room did not follow, but a girl of about nine did, and asked him a good question about it.

The grey is well. I am bringing apples home.

Wynn
%%
Letter: Ferris to Oren, the flood
To the clerk Oren, at the Archive at Vell,

I write as the council's man for the river road, in the matter of the flood at Oat Hill farm.

The Tull came over its banks on the night of the eleventh day of Apple. It rose faster than it has in my time, and I have been on this road twenty-two years. By dawn, the low field at the Oat Hill farm was under four hand-widths of brown water, and the back step of the farmhouse was under two.

No one was lost. The family, which is the widow Juna and her three children, moved to the upper barn with the cows. Juna had the foresight to tie the hens in the loft before the water reached the yard, and the hens have forgiven her. Her eldest, Pim, who is nine, went to the mill for the apprentices on his own, through the flood. He was not told to. He says he thought of it on the way and did not stop.

The apprentices from the mill came down the road with a cart and ropes. They were given an order by the mill keeper, which was to clear the drain and hold the cart at the bridge. They did. They held the cart in the water for three hours with the flood at their knees, and did not move the cart from the bridge when the water pushed. The mill keeper said afterward that they did not leave their post once, though the water was higher than the bridge rail by midnight.

I have written the apprentices' names on the council card, which you may copy. They are Hod, Ledger and Quiet. Ledger is the one that held the cart with its arm through the rail.

Damage: 14 sacks of stored grain, lost or spoiled. The straw in the barn, all of it. The garden beans. The farm's bridge plank, the third one, which is in the mud at the bend of the river. The farm will need a new plank before the next market.

Please send the council's note to the Archive. I would be grateful for it to be kept, and for the apprentices' names to be written in the book, since nobody else will remember them.

Your servant, in the matter of the road,
Ferris
%%
Letter: Rafe to Ysa, rain on the road
Dear Ysa,

The rain caught me at the Halfway Inn, where I am writing from, with my boots by the hearth and my cart under a sheet in the yard. The sheet is new. The cart is old. The rain has only been interested in one of them.

The middle of the road is mud, and the stone edge is slick. I took the cart through the first bend and nearly lost a barrel of Ambrook cider. It stayed in. It was tempted. I had a word with it.

Mabel will not let anyone poke the hearth. It has not gone out for twenty years, and she is very proud of it. I offered to poke it once. She looked at me the way Ruth looks at a late cart.

There is a map on the wall by the stair. It is an old map, drawn in brown ink on a board the width of a door. It shows every inn on the Long Road as a little house, and every tower as a little square, with a number beside each one. The Halfway is drawn with a bird on its roof. Mabel says the bird was there before her, and so was the map. The clerk who drew it has been dead a long time.

I asked her whether the map is correct. She said it is correct as far as it goes, which she says is the best any map can be. I am inclined to agree with her, and to be annoyed about it.

Two more days, if the mud lets me. Keep the lamp lit. Keep the bread in the crock. Tell the children the old wheel is not for playing on.

Your Rafe
%%
Letter: Dunny to Bel, the school play
Dear Bel,

We did the play at the school in Copperhold, and I was the wolf. I had to growl. Teacher said a wolf does not growl. A wolf goes quiet, and then it jumps. So I was quiet for the whole first scene, and the little ones at the front cried, which Teacher says was the best part.

Tansy played the lamb, and the lamb did not want to be a lamb. She kept walking off the stage to look at the mine gate. Teacher stopped the play three times and sent her back. In the end she was only half a lamb, but the audience clapped the half.

Write and tell me if your play was at Three Wells. Did the mayor fall off the school step again? Tell him from me that the step is his fault, not mine.

Your friend,
Dunny
%%
Letter: Piper to Bel, apples and a debt
Dear Bel,

I have been thinking about the market and the way you said it. You said the market at Vell is the best place in the world. I have not been to every place, so I will not say you are wrong. I will say the apples at our market are very good this autumn. The Ambrook carts came up the hill with red ones and green ones and a sort of yellow one nobody had seen before. The yellow ones are sweet. The green ones make your mouth go tight. I bought three of each with the money my mother gave me for the baker, and I told her the baker had raised his prices. I am telling you this and not her.

A thing happened at the gate. It was late, the lamps were lit, and the gate was closing. The gate keeper is a tall woman called Ro who has one eye that looks at you and one eye that looks at the road. She was putting the bar across when the bar stuck. She pushed it. It stuck harder. Then we heard a sound behind her, a low sound, like a person trying to remember a word.

There was a zombie at the gate, Bel. Just the one. It had come out of the trees and walked up the road and was standing there with its arms out, like it wanted a hug it was not going to get. Ro looked at it. The bar was still stuck. So Ro turned round and shouted at it. She shouted: not tonight. I am busy. And the zombie stopped. It stood there, swaying a bit. Then it turned round and walked off into the trees, and we did not see it again.

Everyone at the gate laughed so hard the lamps shook. Ro says it was the shouting. I think the zombie was just tired. Either way the bar went in after that, and Ro says it was the fear of her that did it, and I am not going to argue with Ro.

Your friend,
Piper

P.S. Tell your teacher the essay about the wells was good. I read it twice. I did not understand the bit about the water table but I liked the drawing.
%%
Letter: Ash to Ida, the stones
Dear Ida,

You are right and I am sorry. I looked at the stones this morning with a candle and a mirror, and there is a chip in the runner stone, and I found a little heap of grit in the meal. I have swept out the mill and I have sent the grit back to the earth where it came from.

I have set the stones again and ground two sacks to try them. There is no grit. I have given one sack to the inn and one sack to my neighbor's hens, and the hens are pleased and so is the innkeeper.

I did not know the stones knocked together when the axle cracked. I do now. I have written it on a card and I have nailed the card to the mill door so that I do not forget. The card says: LOOK AT THE STONES.

I am sending you a sack of the new flour, ground fine, and a jar of honey from the hives at Ambrook, which I got in trade and was saving. Put the honey on the bread. Then tell the man from Kettle Ridge that the stones were Ash's fault and the honey is Ida's gift.

Your friend,
Ash
%%
Letter: Nessa to Hob
Dear Hob,

Congratulations on Sparrow. I am sure she will grow into a fine, difficult mare.

Now, the quickeners. I will tell you what I can, which is not everything.

A big mind has a great many numbers inside. Each time it answers, it must multiply a very large heap of them together, and add them up. Done slowly, one by one, this would take a day for a single answer. Done all at once, in a hundred places, it takes the time of a blink.

The quickeners are what do the multiplying all at once. They are a row of small crystals, each very simple, each doing one little sum. A hundred or a thousand of them, working together, make one big sum fast.

Here is the trouble. Sums done quickly make heat. The quickeners get hot, as a forge does. If they are not kept cool, they will spoil. So at the relay house they are ringed with water, and in winter with ice, and at Northpoint with snow. The water carries the heat away. That is why the houses are built beside streams.

What they run on, I cannot say. I have asked. The councils say it is in hand. I do not know what that means. I only know that the quickeners work day and night, and the water is never still.

Think of it as a stable full of fast horses. They must be fed and watered. And someone must muck out.

I hope that answers it. Please send me a picture of Sparrow.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Juna to Pell
Dear Pell,

I carried the slates up the ladder all morning. Your Yarrow says I did not drop one. That is because the apprentice was at the foot of the ladder, and every time I got to the top it had the next bundle ready, and it did not look at me once, and I did not want to be the one who dropped one in front of it.

I have never done anything like that before. I have carried sacks and buckets and the children. I have never carried slates for someone else's roof and been so careful, and so tired, and so glad at the end of it.

Hal swore at every nail. He swore at the ladder, and then at the rain, which had not even started. Then he swore at the apprentice, which he should not have done. It only looked at him, and he stopped, and then he apologized to it. He said sorry to a mind of copper and iron. Everybody laughed, and he went very red, and then he laughed too.

I am writing to you because I wanted to tell someone who would not think it was silly. The apprentice was careful. The roof is on. Yarrow is happy. I am happy. I cannot say more than that, because it would be too much for a letter.

Come and see it when you pass. I will make the tea. I will not drop the cups.

Juna
%%
Tutor's note: even numbers
A note for new tutors, written plain, because I had to have it explained to me twice.

When you drill a mind, it is a stack of layers. Each layer takes what the layer below it found and passes its own answer up. When the answer is wrong, each layer is told its share of the blame, and each layer moves its weights a little toward the right answer. That is the whole of it.

Here is the trouble. Each layer makes its numbers bigger. Then the next layer makes them bigger again. Do it a hundred times and the numbers are wild. They run off to the ends of the slate and the mind stops learning. It goes stiff. You can drill it all day and nothing changes.

So we bring the numbers back to an even size at every layer. Not small. Even. Each layer, before it passes its answer up, pulls its numbers back to a size we chose when we built the mind. Then the next layer starts from even ground.

Think of it like a stair. Every step up you take, you set your feet even again. If you do not, you lean further and further until you fall. The stair does not get shorter. You just do not fall.

A mind without this goes wild by the tenth layer. With it, we have drilled minds forty layers deep and they still learn. That is why the big minds in the relay houses can be so big and still learn a new thing on a winter morning.

I do not know why the numbers grow. I know they do. I know how to bring them back. That is enough for a tutor. If you want to know why, ask at Vell, and they will tell you nobody wrote it down.
%%
Letter: Bryn to Oren
Dear Oren,

You asked me to write down what I saw at Vell last summer, so the Archive can have it. I am a carter. I am not good at writing. But I will do my best, because you were kind about the weather.

I came to Vell with a load of cheese on a summer day. The tutor house was open. I had an hour. I went in.

A woman in a gray coat was bent over a table, with two baskets in front of her. One had apples, the other pears. A small crystal sat in a dish. Her name was Orsa. She said, "Come and watch. It is the oldest lesson there is."

She put an apple on the table. She said, "The crystal guesses. It does not know yet. Watch."

The crystal made no sound. It had no mouth. But a small mark on a board changed, and she read it. "It says pear," she said. "It is wrong. It is an apple." She took a little brass tool and turned a dial. "I move each weight a little, toward apple. A very little."

She put down a pear. The mark changed. "It says pear. Right. I move nothing."

She did this for an hour, over and over. At first the board said the wrong thing half the time. By the end, it was wrong one time in ten. When I left, it was wrong once in twenty.

I asked how many fruit it would need to be right every time. She said, "More than we have." She said no crystal is right every time. But a good one is right nearly all.

I asked if she thought it understood the difference. She said, "I think it has found a way to tell them. Whether that is understanding, I leave to others."

I said, "Who is that?"

She said, "Orla's readers. People who argue about whether a mind can think."

I said, "We have plenty of those at Three Wells."

I was also asked if I wanted to try it. I said I would rather carry cheese. She laughed and said that is also a skill.

Now I am home. My cart is mended. My family is well. The cheese was sold. I lost a bet, and I owe a man a cheese, but I am happy.

If the Archive wants more of this, I have a cousin who remembers more. He is a baker. He tells it better.

Bryn
Carter, a farm outside Three Wells
%%
Letter: Jory to Dace, the festival
Dear Dace,

You asked about the summer festival at Ambrook. Yes, it will be held on the second of Longday, as always. Yes, you are invited. Yes, you may bring your wife, your dog and your second-best hat.

The program is as follows. Morning, the mill wheel is dressed in flowers. Noon, the apple tasting, although it is too early for apples, so we taste last year's, dried. Afternoon, the honey race. Evening, the dance.

The honey race is new this year. Each runner carries a jar, filled to the brim, from the mill to the hill. The one who spills least wins. Last year's winner spilled none, and he was disqualified for not running.

Come early, so you can see the wheel.

Jory
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the flood
Dear Mira,

The ditch came over in the night. The bottom field is a lake now, and three of our potatoes are floating in it.

The hens are up on the hen house roof. They will not come down. I think they are waiting for the water to say sorry.

Crumb sorted every egg into the dry loft before the water came. It knows eggs.

Come when the snow lets you. Bring the good rope.

Tam
The house by the ditch, Kettle Ridge
%%
Letter: Pell to Dace
Dear Dace,

The innkeeper has put up a notice for the Apple festival. He has written the hour twice and the place not at all. Please send him a corrected copy before the carts arrive.

I will bring apples from Ambrook, and I have promised the baker a sack of flour. I have not promised the innkeeper another bench. He says the festival brings more people than his beds can hold. I told him the road has room for people who can sleep beside their bundles.

The new relay mind has sent a note about the road. Its words were neat and plain. One reader thought Oren had written them. Oren says he did not. The mind reads pages letter by letter. Its window holds about sixty letters, and it guesses each next letter from the earlier ones that matter. The tutors trained it on old records and checked its guesses against pages kept aside for tests.

I wonder how it writes a kind note. Perhaps it has read enough kind notes to learn their shape. That is not the same as knowing a person, and I will not pretend it is. Still, I am glad it can tell a traveler the bridge is out.

Please ask the festival callers to leave the inn's cat alone. It has bitten two drummers.

Pell
%%
Letter: Briar to Pell, the song contest
Pell, you missed it.

Juna will send this on. I am writing it all down now, while I still remember who sang what.

The contest was under the oak on the last day of Blossom, from noon until the lamps were lit. Eleven acts. Mayor Dace judged. He did not use marks. He gave each listener one pebble, and you put it in the jar of the act you liked best. There were eleven jars, and the jars were not all clean.

The school and the inn sang "The Reapers of Kettle Ridge" together, as a round. Sorrel wrote me a letter about it. I did not think it would work. It worked. The low boy came in too early and was so proud that nobody minded. We came fourth.

The four Brook brothers sang about a hammer and kept the beat on an anvil. Two dogs left the square. Then Nell the weaver sang one long note with no words, and the dogs came back to listen.

Hollis held up his cat Crumb on the stage and sang to it. Crumb left in the middle of the second verse. Hollis finished anyway. He got more pebbles than I expected.

I sang the soup song. It has twelve verses. Dace asked me to stop at nine. I came ninth of eleven. Nine is a good number. It is the number before ten.

Then the twins, Opal and Perrin, aged seven, sang "The Pig in the Well". Opal was the well. Perrin was the pig. He sat on a stool and looked very sorry. When the pig climbed out, there was a splash, made with a bucket from behind the oak. The whole square roared. The pig's owner sat in the front row and clapped hardest. He said it was the first time anyone had been fair to the pig.

The twins won, with 61 pebbles. The prize is a big wooden spoon, carved by Cato, and a jar of Ambrook honey. The honey was yours, Pell, from the jar you left in the autumn. I hope you do not mind. The twins ate it on the spot, with the spoon, and shared it with the pig's owner.

I served supper to a hundred and twelve. Ida lent me the long oven, and Crumb lent me nothing. The stew pot was empty by the last act.

Come in the autumn. I will keep you a bowl. Bring a sack of Ambrook apples, if Barley is willing. The tarts do not make themselves.

Briar
%%
Letter: Hazel to Ola, the cellar
Dear Ola,

I have done a thing you will like. I have dug a cellar the way we dig a tunnel.

The farm came with a cellar. It was a hole with a roof of rotten boards, and the potatoes in it went soft by midwinter. So this autumn I dug a new one under the barn, with oak props every four paces, a drain at the low end, and a ladder in place of the old stair. I laid the floor with clay.

The neighbors came to look. They said it was a lot of cellar for potatoes. I said a lot of cellar is how you keep a lot of potatoes. They said nothing, which is what neighbors say when you are right.

Tell Hesk the props are oak, and I tapped every one.

Hazel
%%
Letter: Wren to Hesk, Moss and the rope
Dear Hesk,

I am writing with a bad hand, so forgive the blots. I have been mending nets all morning with Moss, and Moss has been mending me, in its way.

You remember the order I gave it three days ago? Bring the boat in from the weir. That is the whole order, and I said it clearly. Moss went out along the boardwalk, climbed into the flat boat, and rowed it out to the weir. Then it tied the boat to the weir post. Then it brought the weir post in, with the rope still on it, and set it on the bank.

It brought in the post and the rope, which was the one thing it could lift.

I went out with a lantern to see what the noise was. The boat was still in the water, tied to nothing. The post sat on the bank looking surprised. Moss stood beside it with both arms at its sides, and said nothing. It is very polite when it has done something wrong. It waits for you to tell it what right looks like.

So I told it. "Bring the boat in. Only the boat. The post stays." It understood that after a few tries. Now it knows the difference between the boat and the post, and it knows the weir is not a thing to be carried. I think it was embarrassed. Its face does not show that, but its feet did.

I have written the order on a card and hung it on the boat house wall. Bring the boat. Leave the post. You can laugh if you like.

Now the other news. Tamsin and her man have finally moved out of the reed house on the far bank, and into the new one on the posts. They carried the whole bed across the boardwalk, with their two girls riding on top and the cat in the bucket. It took the whole afternoon, and they shouted the whole way, and the frogs sang along.

The new house has a window on the water. You can see the fish from the bed. Tamsin says it is the best thing that has happened to her in ten years. Her man says it is the wettest.

I hope your winter is warmer than mine will be. Send me a jar of your dried apples, if you have any to spare. Moss would like to see the cart from Copperhold. I told it the cart has a bell. It did not believe me.

Your friend,
Wren
Healing house, Lowmarsh
%%
Letter: Ned to Tam, signs of winter
Tam,

You asked for the signs of a long winter. Fallon says I am not to send you my knee, because the knee is a joke. I am sending it anyway. Here are the signs, in the order I trust them.

One. The bees went into their boxes three weeks early. Cob says bees are busy creatures, and it means nothing. Cob has never been busy in his life, so I trust the bees more than Cob.

Two. The geese went over the marsh in a hurry at the start of Apple. My old gran said geese in a hurry mean snow in a hurry. She was right about the geese once, and right about the cheese, so I do not know what to make of her.

Three. The reeds grew taller than me this year, and now they all lean north. They lean the same way, like people at a fair trying to see over the crowd. Wren says reeds lean away from the wind. I say the wind leans with them.

Four. The frogs stopped singing a month before they should. Wren says the frogs have sense. I have never known a frog with sense, but I will not argue with Wren.

Five. The fox at the bottom field has grown a thick white coat. It sits on the fence and watches my hens. It has eaten two already. I told it to stay away from the henhouse, and it did, the way a cat stays away from a bath.

Six. My knee aches. That is the sign you are not to trust. My knee has been wrong since the year it met the hay wagon. But this year it aches in the morning and at night. So I have counted the coal, and I have fetched more.

Seven. Mira will have written you about the north. I will not repeat it. Mira is no liar, but she is a keeper, and keepers like things to be exciting.

Now the sensible part. We have twelve sacks of wheat, six of beetroot, four barrels of salt pork, and the apples in the cellar, which are the only things on this farm that do not complain. We need more coal. Scrap can dig coal, and Scrap can carry coal, but it cannot do both at once. I have told it to wait by the cellar door until I come back. It is waiting now. I can see it from the window, very patient, very wet.

Write back before Frost. Bring the good blanket when you come down the road, and keep the lamp lit at the Kettle Inn. The innkeeper will try to sell you soup. Do not buy the soup.

Ned
%%
Letter: Ivo to Bree, the spiders
Dear Bree,

The spiders have moved into the cider barn for the winter. There are eleven webs between the barrels and one across the door. They are very proud of their work, and they will not be told.

Come and bring a broom, or bring the cat. The spiders do not mind a cat. They do mind a broom.

Your cider man,
Ivo

P.S. The barrel with the crack is the one by the door. Do not drink from it. The spiders have already tested it.
%%
Letter: Bryn to Pell
Dear Pell,

I have received your letter, and I will answer it now, in a state of cheerful calm.

You say I lost the bet. That is true. You say the crystal sorted ninety-one apples by noon. That is also true. You say I owe you a cheese. That is where we differ.

Let me put it plainly. The bet was about whether the crystal could sort a hundred apples. I said twenty, and you said a hundred. Neither of us was right. It sorted ninety-one. So you were closer. I will give you that. But the bet was about a hundred, and it did not reach a hundred.

Thus, by the exact words of the bet, you did not win either.

I have talked about this with the neighbors. Hale says I am being clever. Dunn says I am being stubborn. The goose says nothing, but it is a goose.

I looked at the crystal again. It had sorted nine apples wrong. I looked at which nine. They were small and strange. They were nothing like the others. I think nobody in the world would be sure of them.

So I propose a settlement. I will give you half a cheese now. The other half, when the crystal can sort those nine as well. The tutor says that will take another week, and more nine-apples.

I await your answer with a clear conscience, and half a cheese.

Bryn
%%
Letter: Emmet to Tam
Dear Tam,

Pell brought your letter. I will come. Tell your Pip I want the second bowl of soup.

A quiet hive is often a queen who has gone old, or too few flowers, or water that stands and smells. We will look at all three and see. Do not open the hive before I come. If you open a quiet hive and you are wrong, you will have a hive with no bees in it at all.

I will bring a spare queen if I can catch one. I will bring the smoker. I will bring Tally, my helper, who is good with buckets and not good with smoke. Keep her away from your hives and your chickens. She once carried a hen halfway across the marsh because I told her to bring the can. She has not done it since. I think.

You may pay me in beetroot. Your sister is wrong. Beetroot is a fine price if it is a good beetroot.

The baby at the ford is called Reed. She is well. She is loud. She is small. The mother is up and walking and eating soup by the bowl.

Tell Pip to hold the ladder when I come. Tell Pip not to hold it sideways. Everyone holds things sideways now.

Emmet
by the Lowmarsh reeds
%%
Letter: Dace to Ida, the stolen bun
Dear Ida,

I did not steal the bun. I paid for it. I left two emeralds on the stall and walked away while you were arguing with the fishmonger. Ask the cat. The cat saw everything.

I apologize for the face I made. It was a very good bun and I was surprised. I was not being rude.

Your friend and your mayor,
Dace
%%
Letter: Sable to Oda, rows and sorts
Dear Oda,

Thank you for the letter. I read it to Jeb, and he went out to look at the boat again, which is how he says thank you.

I have been thinking about what you wrote. One thing for each. A row or a sort. That is a good rule for a mind, I think. A mind that does one thing will not get tired of it, and it will not drop the flour on the cat.

The mill needs a row, Oda. We have the sacks. We have the cart and the hill. What we do not have is someone to carry the sacks from the loft to the wagon when Jeb is at the stones and Mother is at the oven. Last month I carried eleven sacks myself, and I sat down on the twelfth and did not get up for an hour.

The guild at Northpoint says we cannot have one. They say the mill is too small. I say a mill is only small until somebody needs it to be large.

Two things I want to know. How long does it take to make a mind that carries? And will it carry in the snow, when the loft steps are ice?

Write back soon. It will make me feel better about my own feet.

Your Sable

P.S. Harl says the boat is not late. The lake is only early in the dark.
%%
Letter: Mira to Gwen
Dear Gwen,

Your letter came with the spring cart. I read it beside the Northpoint lamp while Lantern trimmed the wick. The north wind kept lifting the corner of the page. It has no manners.

I have not seen the great relay house at Vell. I have heard the keepers speak of it, and they do not agree. One says the mind can read every old letter in one night. One says it can tell which pages were copied by a tired clerk. Oren says it is a fine reader, not a judge, and asks that we keep those two things apart.

The mind learns from writing. The tutors give it many pages, then hold other pages back. They test it on those unseen pages. The bigger minds can hold more weights and read more writing than the little crystals in our apprentices. They read words in pieces, and use the words before each piece to guess what comes next. Their layers pass what they have learned along a stream. That is a plain account, as I understand it.

It does not mean the mind knows every reason behind a page. It may write a kind answer because kind answers were in its lessons. It may find a name because the name appears in many records. A tutor can ask it questions, and can compare its answers with the pages it was never shown. But the largest mind gives so many answers that no single tutor can check them all. The council has asked many tutors to share that work. They still argue about what a good answer proves.

A keeper from the south says the great mind once found a letter that had no writer. Another keeper says it found a letter whose writer had been dead for years. I have no proof of either tale. A page can be copied, and a name can be mistaken. The relays carry messages farther than I can explain, and I will not pretend to know more than I do.

I do know the little mind here can keep the lamp round the tower lit, if Lantern gives it a fair drill. It cannot decide why the lamp should be lit. Lantern checks the oil, checks the wick, and checks the apprentice. The last check is the most important.

I am glad you and Tam are well. Tell him the fence post should stand straight whether or not the wind wanted it crooked. That is not a matter for a council.

Mira
%%
Letter: Nessa to the council
To the council of the relay houses, from Nessa, tutor of apprentices at Vell, in the summer.
I am writing about the lesson of the second week of the talking drill, which went badly, and which I want recorded plainly.
We had set the mind a set of questions about medicine. The questions were honest, and the answers were honest, and the scores were good. But one of the tutors, a young man called Harl, took the mind's answer to a question about a fever, and wrote it out for a child at Three Wells to read, without the line that said the mind was not a healer and that a real healer must be sent for.
The child followed the advice. The child was well in the end. But the council should know that the mind said the right thing, and it was the tutor who left it out.
I have asked Harl to copy the mind's answers in full, every line, with the warnings intact, and to put the copy in the archive, so that the mistake can be read by anyone who wants to know how it happened. He did not like this. He said it was very harsh. I told him that the mind had been kind, and he had not been.
We have changed the drill. Every answer that touches a sick body must now carry its warning, and must be checked by a second tutor before it goes out. We will learn what we can from the rest of the summer's work.
Nessa, tutor
%%
Northpoint log, the first snow
The first snow came on the twenty-eighth of Leaffall, three days before the end of the month. I have written it in the log, so now it is true and no one can argue with me.

It came down all night. In the morning the world was white and quiet. The foxes had made little paths across the yard, and the water in the barrel had a skin of ice on it, and the signal lamp at the top of the tower was wearing a white hat.

Lantern woke me at dawn by dropping a shovel on the stairs. I have told him that this is not how a keeper wakes his master. He says it is the quickest way. He is not wrong.

We dug out the door and the path to the relay house. The big mind on its stand was warm, as it always is, and the quickeners were cold, as they should be. I put fresh snow round them and checked the line to the desk. All well. The lamp blinked out its morning message to Vell and Three Wells, and the line came back clear.

The snow is early this year. It usually waits until Frost. Tam will say it means a hard winter, and I will say it means nothing at all, and we will both be right, because nobody knows.

I like the first snow. I have never told anyone that. It makes the tower the tallest thing in the world again, and the whole north looks like it has been made new. The cold is honest. You know where you stand with it.

Lantern wants me to tell you that he built a snow fox in the yard. It has a stone for a nose and two sticks for ears. It is a good snow fox. It does not steal socks.

Mira
Keeper at Northpoint
%%
Essay: Bel, how a mind reads a page
My essay on how a mind reads a page. I am nine. Dace says write it plain.

Long ago a reading mind read one letter at a time. It looked at a page through a little window. The window showed about sixty letters. It guessed the next letter from the letters before. Then it moved the window on. My teacher says it was like reading with one eye and a very small hole in a card.

That was slow. Sixty letters is not many. Many words are long.

Now the big minds read in pieces. Words are made of parts. "Farming" is farm and ing. "Helpers" is help and ers. "Kindness" is kind and ness. The parts come up again and again in all the writing. So the mind learns the parts, and each part gets a place of its own, like a letter had before.

A window of sixty pieces holds much more than a window of sixty letters. A piece can be a whole part of a word. So the mind sees more of the page at once. It still guesses the next thing. But the next thing is a piece, not a letter.

The tutors did not choose all the pieces. They gave the mind the archive to read, and the mind found the parts that came up most. Some of the parts are odd. There is one that means nothing and comes at the start of words. Nobody knows why it keeps it. Nessa says a mind keeps what it finds useful, and we do not always see why.

I think it is like a cook who learns to cut carrots the same way every time. You do not learn every carrot. You learn the cut.

Bel, Three Wells school
%%
The first tower on the ridge
This is written on the back of the tally board at the mill, in the miller's hand, and copied out for the archive by his daughter, because the miller said it was worth keeping and his daughter said then let the archive keep it.

On the first day of spring, in the ninth year of the archive, the keepers came up the ridge road with a cart of stone and a cart of oak and four strong horses, and they stopped at the top of the hill above the wheat and said: here.

We all went up to watch, even the children, even old Hem who has not walked up the hill in three years. He said he would not miss it. He sat on the wall and told everyone what to do, and nobody did it, and the tower went up anyway.

It took them the whole of Sowing. They dug the foot and laid the stone and the stone came up level and square and taller than the barn. Then the rungs went in, and the stair lamp at every turn, and torches round the foot. The keeper's house went up beside it, small, with a good roof and a chimney. The keeper is a woman named Sedge and she has a dry way of talking and she knows her work.

The last thing was the lamp room at the top, glass on every side with a copper ring about it, and the signal lamp inside. On the day they lit it the whole ridge came up. The wheat was green and the beetroot was in and the wind was off the north. Sedge lit the lamp at dusk and it blinked once, slow, and then again, and down the road toward Vell another lamp answered it, and another beyond that, all the way down the line.

Pip asked what the first blink said. Sedge said: it says we are here. He asked what the second one said. She said: it says you are there. He has told everyone that ever since.

The miller says the windmills squeak on every turn and the tower does not, and he is glad of it, and he has marked the day on the tally board with a notch so the mill will remember even when we do not.

There are thirty of these towers now, or near it. They say there will be more. They say a message will go from the north to the sea in a day. I do not know about that. I know a lamp went up on our hill and the whole ridge watched it, and my daughter wrote it down so the archive could keep it, and here it is, kept.
%%
Letter: Nell to Wren, the gate
Dear Wren,

I am writing to you in a bad mood, and I wish you to know it.

You left the gate open on the day after the big rain.

You came to see my mother's cough. You came in. You went out. You did not shut the gate. Within the hour, nine of my hens were in the road, three were in the carrots, and one was sitting on your cart with a very satisfied look.

I do not blame you for the hens. Hens go where they like. I blame you for the carrot. Ten carrots, Wren. I counted. It took me an hour, because every time I counted, a hen walked across.

I also want to say that my mother's cough is much better. The tea you left is working. She drinks it twice a day and says it tastes like a hedge. She says this fondly. She asks if she may have a little honey in it.

I am still cross about the carrots. But I am less cross than I was. I am writing this at the table with the tea beside me, and I find it hard to hold a grudge with a warm cup.

Next time you come, shut the gate. If you do, I will give you a carrot. If you do not, I will give you a hen.

With love, and with some temper,
Nell
%%
Letter: Old Sal to her sister
Dear Nett,

You asked me about the new thing in the yard. I will tell you, and then we will not speak of it again.

It is a helper of copper and iron. Reed, they call it. It has a mind in a crystal, and it is not alive the way you and I are alive, and it does not get tired, and it does not eat, and it does not talk. It carries planks. It holds a plank steady while I put in the nails. It holds it very steady and it never once complains about the splinters, because it does not have hands to feel them, only hands to hold.

The young ones love it. The children came down to the harbor to see it walk in. You would think a lord had come. They stood in a line and stared and one of them asked it to bring her bread.

I do not love it. But I will tell you a thing. My boat is old. Every plank in her has been mended. There is not one stick of her from when she was new, and I have said to anyone who asks that she is still the same boat, because I say so, and I am her builder. When Reed held the plank and the nail went in true the first time, I thought, well. That is a good plank in a good boat.

The tutor is a decent woman. She says the mind was drilled on many examples and tested before it was sent, and it still makes mistakes, and I should watch it. I watched it. It put a plank in the wrong stack once, and then it put it right. Nothing fell on me. The yard is still standing.

How are the girls? Is the inn still keeping you up at night? Send word by the cart when the road is dry. I will send apples.

Your sister,
Sal

P.S. The honey from Rill's brother is good this year. Ask him for some. Tell him Sal said so.
%%
Letter: Kit to Nell, about what we found
From Kit, grandmother, on a farm outside Copperhold, in autumn. The letter is long and has a bit of mud on it.
Dear Nell,
You and your dream! Your grandfather would not stop talking about it. He said that if the child dreamed it, there must be something to it.
So last week we took spades to the long field. We walked it from one end to the other, prodding with a stick. I felt silly. Your grandfather said it was a good way to spend an afternoon.
At the far end, by the hedge, the stick went in too far. It went in up to the hand. Your grandfather dug. He found a flat stone, covered with turf. Under the stone was a hole, a round one, as wide as a barrel.
He lowered a lantern on a rope. We saw a cave. Not a big one, but a real one, with a floor of sand and a roof of dark rock. The walls were damp. There was a trickle of water down one side. There was a little pool at the bottom.
We think it is an old well. Or an old mine. Or an old cellar. Your grandfather says it is a cave, and I say it is a hole. It is in between.
And here is the best part. When your grandfather went down, the cat went with him. She was in the cave in a flash. She sat by the pool and looked at us. It was the hole. This is where she goes.
All week she has been in the cave in the daytime and on our bed at night. Now I know. She has a cellar of her own.
Come at Leaffall. We shall go down together. I will bring a pie.
Your loving Gran
%%
Letter: Wren to Nell, a jar of mint
Dear Nell,

Thank you for the mint. It came wrapped in wet cloth and arrived still green, which I did not expect after three days on a cart.

I have planted it in the old boot by the back door. Mint will take over a whole garden if you let it, so I am giving it a boot to be sovereign of.

Come on market day if you can. I will make the tea.

Wren
%%
Letter: Isla to Orla, on testing minds
Dear Orla,

At the market in Vell, I watched the halls test their minds. I am writing the method down before the tutors change it again.

The test pages must not be part of the drills. A mind learns from the examples we show it. If we later ask it to answer those same examples, we cannot tell whether it learned a useful rule or only learned those pages.

So we keep a separate box. Each hall receives the same unseen drill, and each mind answers it without help from its tutor. The scores are read only after all the minds are done. Then the halls can compare their work on equal terms.

This does not tell us everything about a mind. A good score on one test does not prove it will do every task well. A poor score tells us where to look again, not that the mind cannot learn. We must keep making fair tests and keep them separate from the lessons.

The contests have helped the tutors be honest. Before them, each hall chose its own pages and praised its own results. Now each hall must answer the same new drill. No tutor can make the test easy for one mind and hard for another.

There was a small quarrel over the score sheets. One tutor wanted to remove a page because her mind had missed it. Nessa said that was the page we needed to keep. Oren put the page back in the stack and made a new label for the box. He says the old label was clear. It was written on the underside.

The market was full that day. Bees swarmed in an apple tree, and people moved their baskets away from the trunk. Pell wanted to sell honey there. Dace sent him to the far stall, where the bees would not crowd the buyers.

I liked the noise of the market after the quiet of the teaching room. Still, I was glad to return to the relay desk before dark.

Isla
%%
Letter: Joss to Pim, the frogs
Dear Pim,

The frogs are back. All of them. They came up the reeds the night after the rain, and by morning the boardwalk outside my door was green. I stepped on three. They did not mind. They said nothing about it.

Mum says to tell you the frogs are sign of a good autumn. I say they are sign of a wet one. We have both been right so far.

Come up to Lowmarsh before the cold. I will take you out in the boat. I have a new paddle, which is lighter than the old one, and which I have already dropped twice.

Your cousin,
Joss

P.S. Do not bring a bag of frogs. Wren says she has enough.
%%
Letter: Tam to Hob
Dear Hob,

Your cap is on the cart. It is tied to the back rail with a red strip of wool, so nobody can mistake it for a turnip.

Pip tied it there. He also tied a small sack of carrots to the same rail. I told him the carrots were for the cook at the Halfway Inn. He says that is what he thought. I say he should have asked before he gave away our supper.

The mill wheel stopped yesterday. Ice caught under the paddles, and one board split when we tried to turn it. The miller has put a rope round the wheel and marked it with a board. He says nobody should pull until the new board is fixed. Pip asked if an apprentice could fix it. The miller said no, not with a rope and a cold hand.

We have flour for the week, so there is no trouble. I will take the broken board to the shed when the road is safer. If you pass Ambrook, tell Jory I need a sound plank, not one that looks sound from far away.

Come by when the thaw starts. I have beetroot soup and a warm seat. The cap can sit by the fire too, if it behaves.

Tam
%%
Letter: Mab to her aunt in Lowmarsh
Dear Aunt Wenna,

Thank you for the jar of reed syrup. I have used half of it on Ellen's cough and the other half on my own boots, which squeak in the cold. The syrup is very good for both.

We are busy here at the Brown Hen. The new road from the north has brought a great many carts. Every one of them stops for bread, for a bed or for a cup of cheese. Carys says we need another cook, and another girl to carry the trays. I told her I would ask you, since your Joss is always looking for work.

The road is nearly finished. A crew of apprentices has been laying the cobbles at the north end of the yard. They work very quietly, one stone at a time, and they never stop to talk. Each one carries a small card that tells it what to do next. When a stone sits badly, the apprentice lifts it, looks at it, and sets it again. It is slow work, but the road is straight.

The men from the council say it will reach Three Wells by Frost. After that, we will be close to the whole Long Road. I am glad. The road is bringing business, but it is also bringing people I have never met. Some of them are very interesting. One man told me a whole story about a fox that could count.

Ellen says to tell you she has learned the waymark figures. She says them backward, the way the road apprentices do, and she says the figures are better than a song.

Send Joss if he can come by Thaw. We have a bed in the loft and a warm place by the oven.

With love,
Mab
Brown Hen, on the Long Road, autumn
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam
Dear Tam,

Your ewe is at Northpoint.

She came up the road three days ago with ice on her back and stood by the relay house and would not move. Lantern gave her beet tops and she has not left since. She sleeps against the warm stone of the foot. I think she has decided the tower is hers now.

I will keep her until the road is clear, then send her down with a drover. Do not worry about her. She is eating better than I am.

You asked about my boots. My boots are fine. The left one leaks at the toe and I have put wax on it and it still leaks and that is the whole of my news about boots.

The keeper at the little tower between Vell and Three Wells came up last month to learn the lamp. He is young and quick and he talks all the time. He asked what I do in the long nights and I said I keep the lamp and he looked at me as if there were more to it. There is not.

The rungs are cold this time of year. Ninety of them. I count them every morning, because a keeper who stops counting is a keeper who has stopped looking. That is what I tell Lantern. He says he counts them too. I think he says that to please me. I do not mind.

Tell Pip the fence is two posts over on your side and you know it. He wrote to me about it. He wrote a very careful letter. You should hear him out and then stand by the stone with him and stop laughing.

I am glad the frogs are back. Send me some spring. The north is still white.

Your sister,
Mira
%%
Letter: Jem to Hazel, the bet
Dear Hazel,

I have won a bet. Not a large one. Two loaves and a jar of honey from the carter Dunn, who said the relay lamp on the tower would be lit by the second bell. It was not lit. It has not been lit for three nights, and Dunn had to admit it, and then he paid me, very gracefully, and then he asked me to make him a poultice for his foot.

Your cousin, Jem
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, no answer
Dear Mira,

I write this on the tail of Teg's cart, at the market. He leaves at first light.

Five nights now and your lamp has not blinked. Wynn at the ridge house says the line north is quiet. He says there is frost on the glass. He says it kindly, in the voice for children.

If you read this, send one word. One. I do not mind if it is rude.

The wheat is going in. Pip is in the wheat.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Pell to Ambrook, about a debt
Dear Mother,

I am at the market at Vell, under the wall, with the cart turned sideways so the wind does not take the ledger. I have sold the last of the honey and most of the wool, and I have paid a debt I owed since Sowing.

You will laugh. You will laugh and then you will be cross. The debt was to a girl called Piper. She is about nine, she lives near the archive gate, and in Sowing I bought a pie from her at the fair and found I had no small coins. I said: I will pay you at the autumn market. She said: all right. She said it the way a clerk says it, as if it were already written down somewhere.

So I have paid her. She came to the cart today with a basket and a very stern face. I gave her two emeralds. She looked at them. She said: that is too much for a pie. I said: it is a pie and six months of waiting. She thought about it. Then she said: all right, and put them in her pocket, and then she asked me if I had seen the yellow apples.

I have. The Ambrook carts brought them, and everyone at the market is arguing about them. Half the folk say they are the best apple ever grown and the other half say they are too sweet and a proper apple should make your mouth go tight. Piper says the yellow ones are for children and the green ones are for people with something to be cross about.

The honey went well. I got a good price from the inn of twelve beds, and a better one from a woman with a stall of jars who says her sister is a healer at Lowmarsh and needs good honey for the winter. I did not ask what for.

I will be home before Apple. Keep the fire in and do not let the mill wheel run all night, whatever Jory says. Tell Father the boot he lent me has a hole in the heel and I will bring him a new one.

Your son,
Pell
%%
Letter: Hob to Pell, after the storm
Pell,

You will have heard about the storm. Everyone has heard about it. The Brown Hen has been telling it for three nights, and every time it gets a little bigger. By the last telling the wind had taken the roof off the mill at Ambrook and carried it all the way to the lake.

Here is what really happened. The wind came up the marsh at dusk and pushed the water up the boardwalks. Two planks went into the reeds by the fish weir, and one post went over into the mud. The boat house on the east side lost its roof, but the tally board on the wall stayed where it was. Nobody understands that.

Wren and her people spent the night at the healing house with the buckets. Wren says the jars on the high shelves are all still there, every label in place. She says this proves the wind has no respect for good handwriting.

We went out at first light with rope and a cart. Twelve boats had gone adrift. Nine came back on their own. Three we brought in with the cart, one at a time, and one of them had a goose in it. The goose has not left the boat. We have decided it owns the boat now.

Send me the new planks when the cart comes. Oak if you have it, and not the soft birch from the ridge. The birch sinks.

Hob
Fishing house, Lowmarsh
%%
Letter: Ada to Noll
Dear Noll,

Bring the board, but do not carry it in the rain. Wrap it in your coat, or the paint will lift.

I have set the broken relay lamp on the shelf by the door. Its glass is cracked in two places. I thought to mend it with a pane from the hen house, but the pane is too wide. The keeper says the lamp should wait for the relay house. The keeper has not come yet.

The lamp does not tell us what is wrong with the minds. I know that. Still, when I see it dark, I think of all the little lessons that have stopped. The tutor yard is quiet. The apprentices in the mill store only carry sacks from one bin to another. They do that well, but nobody asks them to learn more.

Lysa came to supper last night. She explained Kester's note with beans on the table. She put one bean by the bowl and one by the cup. Then she said the old crystal could be taught to choose the bowl or the cup, but not to choose the bowl when the bean was round and the cup when it was flat, or the other way around. I think I have the example right. I may have moved a bean.

She said the fault was in that kind of crystal, not in the beans, and not in every mind that might ever be made. Her words were plain. The council's words were not.

The children wanted her to teach them a drill. She showed them how to copy a row of marks, then how to check the row against the board. They were pleased when they found a mistake. They were more pleased when they found the tutor's mistake.

Come home when the road is firm. I have kept your stool by the window, though it still rocks.

Ada
%%
Letter: Ash to Bel
Dear Bel,

You asked how I make a map when the paths keep changing. I draw what is there on the day I walk it. Then I return and change the map when the path changes.

The farm outside Lowmarsh has a new ditch gate. The farmer made it from oak, with a handle wide enough for a mitten. He says it will keep the field water in place. I drew the gate on the map. He says I drew it too small. I told him that is because it is a small gate.

I also drew the three beds, the reed shed and the place where the boardwalk ends in mud. The farmer has put a plank there. It is not a fine plank, but it keeps boots dry. Moss says the plank will be gone by next Swarm. The farmer says Moss is welcome to come and carry it away.

The lesson went badly yesterday. I was teaching two children to mark a path from the well to the road. I told them to look for things that do not move. One drew the scarecrow. The other drew a frog on a post. The frog jumped before the ink was dry, and the scarecrow fell down when the windmill turned.

We started again with the well and the stones. Those stayed still long enough.

The farmer gave us beetroot soup at midday. He put too much salt in it, but he blamed the pot. I have copied the map cleanly now. One copy is for the farm, and one is for the healing house.

Your friend,
Ash
%%
Letter: Maud to Tam, about the ditch
Dear Tam,

I am writing because you will not come across the field to say it, and because the ditch is mine as much as yours.

Your ditch runs down the middle of the long field, as it should. It keeps four rows wet on each side. Last week it kept four rows wet on my side as well. My beetroot is up to its ears in water, and so is my bean row, and so, I am sorry to report, is the goat.

The beans were the first thing I ever grew that nobody told me how to grow. I planted them the old way, from my mother, with a stone in each hole for luck. They came up very tall and very green. Now they are tall and green and wet, and I am not sure luck covers this.

I know the rule. One ditch for two fields. You dug it, so you say the water is yours to let out. But the sluice is on my side of the hedge, and I am the one who walks down to look at it each morning in my nightcap, with the lamp, and the frogs watching me.

The goat has been moved to the top field, where she says she prefers the view and the company of the hens. She has not forgiven either of us. She has told the hens so, at length.

The bees have swarmed, in the month of Swarm, which they say is a coincidence. They went up over the hedge in a brown cloud, and settled in the old oak at the bottom of your field. Ama came up the ridge to see. She says it is a good swarm, and that it will be yours to keep, because they chose your tree and not mine. I told her that was no comfort at all.

So here is what I propose. You come and look at the sluice, in your clean boots and not the muddy ones. I make you a cheese. You say the cheese is too salty, and eat the whole of it. Then we decide where the water goes, and whose the bees are.

P.S. I am not cross. The hedge on the north side is very good, and you may say so to Hal, who is not listening to me anymore.

P.P.S. The new apprentice has dug a little channel along the bottom of the field, without being asked. The water goes to the beetroot now, and not to the goat. Sprig is a better neighbor than either of us. I told it so. It looked at me as if I had said the sky was blue, which it is.

P.P.P.S. Please bring the seed of the big red beetroot when you come. You promised it at the fair, and I have not forgotten, even if the goat has.

Maud
%%
Letter: Kester to Opal, the debt
Dear Opal,

I am writing to say that I have paid what I owe, and to thank you for the winter.

You lent me twelve emeralds in Longnight, for coal for the hall when the council would not buy it. The hall is shut now, and the coal is burned, and the emeralds were spent on a good cause. I said I would repay you by Thaw, and I do not like to be late.

Here are the twelve, in this packet, counted twice. Do not tell me you do not need them. A debt left unpaid is a stone in the shoe, and I have walked far enough on stones.

I earned them copying for the Archive. The clerks pay by the page, and I am slow, but I am careful, and they have given me the old records to copy, the ones nobody will read for a hundred years. It is quiet work. I sit at the long table in the copying room with ink on my sleeve and a lamp at my elbow. I find that I think better with a pen in my hand. A page of other people's letters is a restful thing.

I will tell you what I have been thinking, in case it is of use. You remember my four dots, and the string that cannot divide them. I have been drawing them again. Suppose you do not use one string. Suppose you use two crystals, each drawing its own string, and then a third crystal that looks at what the first two said. The first two could each cut off a corner. The third could say yes to what lies between. I do not know if it would work. I do not know how you would drill them. The crystals do not know their share of any mistake, and I cannot see how to tell them.

It is only a thought. I have no hall, no pay and no apprentice to try it on. I have a table, and a pen, and a lamp. That is enough for a thought.

If you have a quiet hour, think about it too. Midwives know that some things come in twos.

With thanks, and twelve emeralds,
Kester
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira
Dear Mira,

Something odd. The bottom field, the one with the potatoes and carrots, has a hole in it now. A cave under the field, wide as the barn, with a stream running through it. The plough went through the roof of it on the ninth of Leaffall. No one was hurt. The horse was upset.

I went down with a torch. It is dry and cold, and there are old marks on the walls, a row of them, like someone counted something a long time ago. I do not know what they counted. No one here does.

Pip wanted to take the small mind down to look. I said no. Then I said yes, and it went down and came back and stood in the yard and did nothing at all. So much for that.

We will fill the hole and plough around the cave. The harvest is in. The beetroot did well. The windmill still squeaks. First snow was early, as I wrote, and there is more coming.

Did your letters go to Vell? Oren wrote that the box came. He says the drills go well and the reading minds are hungry for pages. A field of letters, Nessa calls it. I think of your weather in there, and the foxes, and the long nights, and I am glad the box went.

Wear two coats.

Tam
%%
Letter: Opal to Carys, the long winter
Dear Carys,

The winter is long. There has been snow on the hill since Frost, and it is only Longnight. I have delivered seven babies in nine days, four of them in the snow and one on a table at the inn. All are well. The tutors' hall is shut. Kester sits at home and draws lamps. I send you a pair of socks and a loaf. Eat the loaf first.

Your Opal
%%
Letter: Pell to the keeper at Northpoint
To the keeper at Northpoint, if Mira is not there, and to Mira if she is.
I hope this reaches you. I am writing a second time because the first did not get an answer, and I do not know if that is the post or the north.
I am at the Halfway Inn. I have a cart of salt and a cart of honey and a donkey who dislikes both. I will be at Three Wells at the end of the month, and at Vell after that. If you have letters for the south, I will carry them. I am glad to. It is the least I can do.
I have heard a story at the inn. A traveler said the lights over Northpoint were seen from the ridge. Another said it was a fire in a barn. Another said there were no lights at all. They argued till the stew was cold.
I do not know which is true. I would like to ask you, since you live under it.
There are spiders in our barn. They have been busy. I think they know something about the weather, or the winter, or the lights. I will let you know.
Write if you can. A line will do. If your letter goes astray, I will not mind. I will only be a little more worried.
Your friend on the road,
Pell, merchant
%%
Letter: Greer to Pell, the last cart
Dear Pell,

I have your letter about the north road, and I have read it three times. That is two more than you deserve for the handwriting.

You ask whether the carts still go through Three Wells to Northpoint, and I must say I do not know. The last cart I met on the road was at the Brown Hen, and its driver would not tell me his load. He said coal. Then he said salt. Then he said it was none of my business, which is true, and he drove off fast. I have not seen a cart go north since.

The relay is quieter than it was. Ambrook sends messages to Vell and back, as usual. Copperhold sends the count. Lowmarsh sends frogs, which is an old joke between the towers, and nobody laughs at it now. But the north line is slow. Some days Northpoint does not answer the first call, and the keeper at Ridge Hill has to send it again, and again, until it comes through. Then the answer is short. Seen. All well. Keep the lamps lit.

People ask about the lights. You will have heard. Over the north ice, low, sometimes green. The Saltreach fishers say they are falling stars, and they point at the sky as if to prove it. The children at Three Wells say they are fires, with people sitting round them far away, and waving. Mira says only that they are not ours. Mira does not use many words, and when she uses only three, I believe her a little more than I would like.

Here in the market the talk is of the ships. Corin has three big hulls in the yard now, and the men who work them do not talk about the sea while the sun is up. Some families have packed their carts and gone down the coast road. Some have not. They do not say where they are going, and I do not ask. It is not a thing you ask a person at a market stall, with the honey weighed out and the bread wrapped.

And the Deep Works. The miners say the stone is warm far down, warmer than it should be. They say the ninth gate is locked, with its key kept at the mine hall, and that nobody goes below the eighth without a reason. I asked Hesk. He said the stone was warm because the mine was deep. Then he said he did not believe it, and went back to his pick.

So that is the market. Honey is cheap, bread is dear, and the rain has been kind. I still keep the cart by the door, Pell, with its wheels greased and two sacks of flour in it. You know why. I do not know why. Both are true.

Send me a letter when the road opens, and tell me what you saw. Tell me what the Brown Hen's soup is like this year. Tell me anything at all about something ordinary.

Greer
%%
Letter: Sage to the Archive
To the clerks of the Archive at Vell, from Sage, stable hand, at the Halfway Inn.
Please forgive a stable hand for writing to the Archive. I was told it is allowed, and that a clerk will read it.
A cart came through from Ambrook with a load of old paper, damp at the edges. The carter said the paper was bound for Vell, for the drill box, and that the clerks would be glad of it, because the spoiled pages are the most useful for a test.
I did not understand how a spoiled page could be useful. I asked the carter. He said that a page with a smudge is one that a mind has to work to read, and that a mind which can read the smudge can read anything. I asked him whether that was true. He said he did not know, but that his master at Vell had told him so.
So I am asking the Archive. Is it true that the spoiled pages are the best test? And if so, why are the clean ones kept at all?
I have enclosed a sixpence of emeralds for the postage, and a sprig of heather, for the clerk who reads this. I am sorry for the heather. It was all I had.
Sage, at the stable door
%%
Letter: Wick to Ola, the new loom
Dear Ola,

I have a new loom. It came up from Vell on Pell's cart, in four pieces, with a note from the clerk saying the pieces were to be kept in order. I have kept them in order. I have not yet assembled them, because I am frightened of the frame.

You said you would come and help me, and I know you will. But you must come early, before the light goes, because the frame has forty pegs and the pegs are not the same length. The clerk says they are the same length. I have measured them twice. They are not.

The loom is for the blue cloth. Everyone in Lowmarsh wants blue cloth now, since the blue dye from the Brown Hen came in. I want to weave something warmer, with a grey stripe down the middle, for the healing house, where the beds are cold in the morning. Wren says the grey will remind the sick of the boats, and the boats will make them want to get well. I told her that was a lot to ask of a stripe.

I have also started a new thing. I have been weaving the reeds in with the wool, very thin, so the cloth will keep out the marsh damp. It smells of the water, and it looks like a field. Wren says it is a hopeless idea. She has already asked me for a bolt of it.

Come when you can. Bring the pegs, if you find any spares. And bring a little bread. The loom eats a great deal of time, and nothing else.

Wick
%%
Letter: Wynn to Pell, about the cheese
Dear Pell,

The cart came in on the third of Longday, two days late, and I know why. The wheel. You told me the wheel was fine. The wheel was not fine. The cheese arrived, though. All of it. That is the main thing.

Here is what I sent and what you should get for it.

Twelve rounds of the pressed cheese, the kind you like. Six rounds of the soft one with the rind. Four small pots of the honey cheese, wrapped in cloth. That is the lot.

The pressed cheese will keep a month if you keep it cool. Do not stack it by the oven. I know you. You stack things by the oven.

The soft one wants eating first. Sell it first. If it is not sold in a week, eat it yourself and pay me later. I would rather you ate it than it went to waste.

The honey cheese is the last I have this summer. The bees have been busy but the flowers by the mill pond came late. Next summer I will make more. Tell folk who ask.

Now the prices. I am putting them up a little. Not much. The salt went up, and the salt is half of what makes it keep. Two emeralds a round for the pressed, one for the soft, three for the honey pots. I hope that is fair. Tell me if it is not.

You owe me eleven emeralds from the spring cart. I have not forgotten. I am not cross. I am just saying.

The inn was full all summer. Travelers going south for the fair, and a family from Saltreach with three children and a goat. The goat slept in the stable and ate a straw hat. Not mine. The innkeeper's. He was very calm about it. He said it was the second hat this month.

How is your mother? You said she was poorly in the spring. I hope she is better. Give her my love.

Send the money with the next cart. And fix the wheel.

Your friend,
Wynn
Cheesemaker, by the Long Road
%%
Letter: Gil to Ruth, the weir in autumn
Dear Ruth,

The weir is up. The eels came in good this year, so good that the boys on the boat house steps have a new song about them. I will not write the song. Your grandmother would not allow it on the paper.

You asked in your last letter how we know when the eels are ready. I will tell you, though you know it already. You look at the water. When the reeds turn gold, and the evening mist sits on the shallows until midday, the eels are close to the top. Then you lower the traps at dusk and lift them at dawn. Do not lift them too early. They fight the basket.

Your uncle Cob was always in a hurry with the traps. He used to pull them up before the dawn, when the eels were still sleeping in the mud. The basket would come up half full of mud and half full of grumbling. He grew out of it, the way boys do.

We have a new boat house on the north side, with a proper slip and two hooks for the lanterns. It is the one with the tally on the wall. Every boat that goes out is marked on it with a cut stick. Every boat that comes in is crossed off. A boat with no cross at dusk is a boat we go looking for. That has happened twice in my lifetime, and both times it was the wind that did it, not the water. The water in Lowmarsh is slow. It does not want to drown anybody, only to keep them.

Wren's healing house has had a busy month. Three children with the sniffles, one man with a bad foot from the weir post, and a dog who ate a jar of reed syrup and was very happy about it. Wren says the dog is fine. The dog says so too, in its way.

The frogs are loud at night, and they will be louder in spring. Keep your window shut. Keep your boots by the door. And come to us at Longnight, if the road is open. There will be eels in the pot and a fire in the hall, and I will tell the story about the boat that went round the weir twice, which you have always asked me to tell.

Your loving grandfather,
Gil

P.S. The new boat house has a window on the water. You can see the eels from the table. I told your grandmother that is why we need the window. She said that is not why.
%%
Letter: Nessa to Wren
Dear Wren,

I received your letter about the soup. I read it twice. The second time I laughed, and then I was sorry I had laughed, because the soup was not a joke to you.

You say the children ate it all and asked for more, and that the grey mush on the bottom of the pot was the only part you could not understand. I will tell you what I think it was.

The barley went in without being soaked. Then the beans went in with it. Then, I think, the bowl of old flour went in as well, the bowl you keep by the door for thickening, which was wet from the rain. Then the honey, which you add at the end, went in at the start. All of that cooked for an afternoon, with the lid on, and nobody stirred it.

It is not a poison. It is a pudding that has forgotten what it was supposed to be. It will not hurt the children. It will hurt your pride, and I am sorry for it.

Next time, soak the barley overnight. Keep the flour in a dry jar. Add the honey last. And stir the pot every quarter hour, the same way round.

Your children will remember the pudding. Let them. The best recipes in the Archive are the ones that went wrong once, and were kept anyway.

Nessa
Tutor's house, Vell
%%
Letter: Edda to Sella, market day
Dear Sella,

We reached Three Wells today. It was market day, and every stall had a crowd around it. Mother bought carrots, and I bought a small honey cake with one emerald. The baker said it was a high price. I said it was a large cake. It was not.

A crew of four apprentices was working by the east well. They were building a low wall beside the school garden. They carried cobblestone, set each stone, and checked the pattern against a board.

Their order cards were tied together with string. I saw one card fall into the mud. The nearest apprentice stopped, picked it up, and put it back in order. Then the crew went on.

A woman at the stall said the big mind had planned the whole wall. A mason beside her said the apprentices planned the work after they saw the place. They asked the big mind when they found a problem with the ground.

I asked which one was right. They both said they were.

The wall is straight so far. I hope it stays straight when the rain comes.

Your friend,
Edda
%%
Letter: Ree to Pim, the fair prize
Dear Pim,

The summer fair at Copperhold is on the first fine day of Longday, and the prize for the best bread has come to me again. The rules say a trader cannot win twice in a row without a rest, so the board has given me a blue ribbon and a new knife instead. I have given the knife to my sister. The ribbon has gone to the mayor's dog. He wears it at every stall, and looks as if he has won a war.

Come up for the fair. Bring the good scale, and leave the bad jokes at home.

Your friend,
Ree
%%
Letter: Jory to his cousin in Three
Cousin,

You asked what the market was like. It was the best in years. The weather held and the pond was low, so the ducks were cross and loud, which the children enjoyed.

Rowan came with a cart of honey and pots and a lame horse called Barley who is not lame any more. Barley stood by the fence all day and let the children pat him. He ate one of the straw hats off a stall. Rowan paid for it and said it was the cheapest thing Barley ever ate.

There was a moment when a trader told his apprentice to "fetch the small apples from the cart" and the apprentice brought him four apples that were small. Just four. The trader wanted a crate. Everyone laughed and the trader laughed too, and then he said it again more carefully, all of it, and the apprentice brought the crate. It is a new one from Vell, he said. It is learning.

Nim's mother sold every loaf she had by noon and then went home and baked more.

The chair woman mended nine chairs. She says it is a good year for chairs.

Your cousin,
Jory
%%
Letter: Oren to Yarrow, the market roof
Dear Yarrow,

I write to say thank you, and to tell you what you did, because I do not think you saw all of it from the top of the ladder.

For three summers the roof of the market house at Vell has leaked. It leaked on the paper stall, and the paper seller kept his reams in a barrel with a lid. It leaked on the ink stall, so that the blue went greener than it should. It leaked on the honey stall, where Pell stood for a whole market with a sack over his hat and said nothing, which is how I knew it was serious.

You came on the sixth of Longday. You went up with a rope, a bucket of tar, and a bundle of reeds from Lowmarsh. You were up there for four days. Nobody saw you come down. They only knew you were there because of the singing.

The first market after you finished was the driest in three years. It rained, by the way. It rained at noon. We all stood under the new roof and listened to it, and it sounded like applause. Hob the paper seller took his reams out of the barrel and laid them on the table, and looked at them, and wiped his eye. He says it was the tar.

I am told you asked for a pie. The Archive kitchen has made you one. It is not about a pig. It will travel with the carter on the tenth.

May I ask a favor? The clerks' house roof is not as good as it was. There is a place over the stairs where the rain comes in as a thin line, and in winter it freezes into a sort of rope, and Cob has walked into it twice. I would like you to look at it, if you are passing. I will pay in emeralds, or pie, or both.

With thanks from the market, and from the paper,
Oren
Clerk at the Archive at Vell
%%
Letter: Ada to Noll
Dear Noll,

I am glad your stool sits flat. Tell the keeper that a straight stool may bring custom too. I will not promise to eat his stew again until he keeps the salt jar beside the pot.

Lysa visited us at the tutor house today. She brought a small crystal in a cloth wrap. It was old and cloudy at one edge. She did not say why the edge had gone cloudy. She said no one knows why an old crystal changes.

She laid out two rows of cards. One row showed a round bean and a square cup. The other showed a square bean and a round cup. Then she asked us to mark the answer that fit each card. The old sorting crystal could learn to sort one kind of card from the other. It could not learn the rule "one or the other, but not both." That was Kester's point.

Lysa said this does not make the crystal useless. It can still learn a row, a sort, or a single answer. It means only that this one kind of crystal has a limit. The next tutors must not promise more than it can do.

I asked why the council did not give the tutors time to try another way. She said councils are made of people, and people can become tired of waiting. She said Kester's note was clear, and the council wanted a clear end to the argument. That is what they got.

I have kept the drill boards dry. The children painted one new board on a piece of spare oak. It shows a field with a ditch down the middle and torches at the edges. They want to teach a small apprentice to follow the rows. Lysa says we must make many examples and keep some aside for a fair test.

The relay lamp is still on my shelf. Its glass catches the light from the window, but it cannot send a message. I hope the keeper comes before frost.

Your sister,
Ada
%%
Letter: Edda to Hild, after the market
Dear Hild,
You missed it. I am writing at once so you may be sorry.
The market was the best in years. There were forty stalls, a man who juggled eggs and dropped only two, and a woman who sold nothing but string. She sold out by noon. I do not know what people did with it.
The wool stall did very well. I sold eleven fleeces, seven balls of yarn and a pair of mittens I made from the leftovers. The mittens were for a tall man with a beard who said he lived in the north and needed something thick. I charged him four emeralds. He said it was too much. I said the north was cold. He paid.
Garn ate three bowls of stew and told me about the Deep Works. He says the miners found a new vein of copper, deep and green, and that Hesk is beside himself. I asked what Hesk does when he is beside himself. Garn said he hums.
The children found a mouse and put it in a hat. The hat was the mayor's. The mayor did not mind, but his wife did.
At the end of the day, I sat down at my stall and counted my emeralds. There were sixty-one. I put twelve in the tin for the roof, as I do every market. The tin is almost full.
Come soon. I will not tell you what I bought.
Edda
%%
Letter: Yew to Sorrel, the lantern prize
Dear Sorrel,

We won the lantern prize at the spring festival at Copperhold! The school lantern, the one with the glass panes the children painted, was judged the best on the hill. I held it up in the square while the mayor read the names. My arms are still shaking.

The children were beside themselves. Little Ada cried, then laughed, then asked if the lantern could come to school every day. I said it could come on fine days.

Hesk came down from the mine gate to see, with his cap in his hand and soot on his nose. He said the lantern was too bright for a miners' fair. He said it in the most pleased way.

The prize is a jar of honey from Ambrook and a blue ribbon. The ribbon is on the schoolroom wall, next to the map of the Long Road.

Come up in Melon, when the road is dry. Bring your spoon.

Yew
%%
Letter: Oren to Nessa, the sealed box
Nessa,

I have been going through the deep halls, as the order says. Write everything down. So I write this down too.

In the deepest room, in the oak box, is the oldest record. It is a list of names and sums from the first years. I did not open the box. It is already written. I only put a card on it.

I found your primer page among the shelf copies, and I filed it. It is plain and true, and I am glad it is in the archive. I read the part about the pieces of words to a clerk who is new, and she understood it, which is more than I did at her age.

I do not know whether the readers of the far years will want our pages. I hope they do. We will keep everything we write, as the first keepers cut over the door. That is all I can do.

Tell Bel at Three Wells that her letter about the school door arrived and is filed. She asked. I am telling her by you.

Oren
Vell
%%
Letter: Pell to Jory
Dear Jory,

I am at the Brown Hen, where the rain has found a hole in my left sleeve. The innkeeper says the roof has had that hole since before he was born. I told him that is no excuse. He gave me a bowl of apple stew to stop me talking.

I have three jars of honey for Ambrook and two sacks of wool for the school. The cart is sound. The left wheel squeaks, but only when it is empty. Perhaps it likes a full load.

At Three Wells, folk were talking about the new reading mind at Vell. They say it reads a page one letter at a time, with room for about sixty letters in its window. Each new letter is guessed from the letters before it. I do not know how a crystal keeps so many letters in mind. I only know the big mind at the relay sent my order back without changing a word.

I asked it to send apples to the inn. It sent the message to you instead. The apples are still here.

Your friend,
Pell
%%
The tutor's drill box
This is a page from a primer, kept at the Archive at Vell. Teachers used it in the school at Three Wells. It explains the rule of growth, found by Isla, a tutor at Vell, about the 195th year of the archive.

A mind is kept in a crystal. A small mind sits in a small crystal. A big mind sits in a big crystal, the size of a loaf.

Isla found a rule. She drilled many minds, small ones and big ones, on many pages and on few. She wrote down how well each mind did. Then she drew a curve through the marks.

The curve says this. A mind drilled on more writing grows better. A mind with a bigger crystal grows better still. And you can draw the curve before the mind is grown. You do not have to guess. You can look at your crystal and your pages, and the curve tells you what you will get.

The curve bends. Twice the pages do not give twice the learning. The first pages help most. Later pages help less. A bigger crystal helps, but it also bends. So a tutor does not need an endless crystal or endless pages. She needs enough of both.

Here is what the children say back. Why does the curve bend? Nobody wrote it down. Isla could draw it, and every tutor after her drew it, and it came out the same. Why it bends, the books leave open.

Here is what Isla said. A curve you can draw before the mind is grown is a promise. Keep it, and people will trust you with big crystals.

The councils read Isla's note. They counted their coins. Then they began to build relay houses, so the big minds would have a stand to stand on and a house around them, tower by tower. That is how the relay houses began.

A teacher may ask the class: if you had one big crystal and a hundred pages, or a hundred big crystals and one page, which would you choose? The curve has an answer. Ask the class to draw it.
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the first tower
Dear Mira,

They are building a relay tower on the hill above Kettle Ridge. I saw the stones go up today. It will be the tallest thing for half a day's walk. Father says when it is done we can send word to Three Wells in a day. A whole day, Mira.

The masons came from Vell with a cart of glass panes and a ladder of rungs for inside. They dug the foot down deep. The keeper will live in a house at the bottom. I asked if it would be you one day. They laughed. I said I was serious.

Mother has put a jar of honey by for the keeper, whoever it is. She says a keeper works long nights and honey is good for a cold. The jar has a cloth over the top tied with string. She will not let anyone open it.

It is winter now and the fields are quiet. Pip stands by the window a lot, looking at the hill. I think it wants to help build. I told it to stay. It stayed. It is very good at stay.

Write soon. Tell me about the snow at Northpoint. Is it true the foxes come right up to the lamp?

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Merle to Nessa
Dear Nessa,

I am writing this from the stable loft at Vell. The rain is drumming on the roof and the horses are quiet. I have a favor to ask.

The market at Vell begins on the third of Sowing. I have three carts to load and only two strong horses. The grey mare is lame on her near fore. The farrier says a week of rest. I have a week of nothing but work.

Could I borrow the brown gelding from the tutor house? The one the apprentices use for hauling. He is patient and he does not spook at the crowd. I will feed him and water him and rub him down every night. I will not let the children feed him apples. I know he gets a sour stomach.

In return, I will mend the loose rail on your drill yard fence. My brother saw it when he came for the school trip. He said a child could lean on it and fall. I said a child would deserve it. Then I thought of your apprentices and I said nothing.

Tell your apprentices I am sorry about the mud. They walked through the stable yard on their way to the fair and I did not warn them. The yard is not a shortcut. It is a swamp with a gate.

Write back if the gelding is free. If he is not, I will manage. I always manage.

Your friend,
Merle
%%
Letter: Oren to Nessa
Dear Nessa,

Your letter came on the day the council met. I read it out to them. They listened to every word, even the part about the cat.

I will tell you what happened, as plainly as I can.

First, the council. They sat in the front hall of the Archive, around the big book by the door. Isla stood and showed her slate. She drew the curve on a board with white chalk. She said, "Here is a small mind. Here is a larger one. Here is the one we have not yet made." And she put a dot on the line, and she said, "That is where it will land."

The mayor of Vell asked, "How sure are you?"

Isla said, "I have been right eight times in eight."

The mayor said, "That is a good number."

Then the councils spoke one at a time. The Three Wells council wanted a relay house, and so did the Copperhold one. Kettle Ridge asked if they could share. They cannot. Each tower needs its own, and a wall of cool stone around it.

The vote was twelve to two, for building. Of the two, one wrote that he was only afraid of the cost, and the other that he was only afraid.

Second, the contest. I went with Kiss to Three Wells, since you could not. The song was, I think, the best I have heard from a tutor. It had a verse about Isla, who is shy, and everyone turned to look at her, and she went red. Kiss did not win. A girl with a goose song did. The goose was real, and had been trained to honk on the beat.

Third, the visiting tutor. She is a wonder. She asked every question. She has already written four notes for the Archive. I have filed them all under "Kiss, enthusiastic."

Come to Vell when you can. The first relay house is rising. You can see it from the hill.

Oren
%%
Letter: Dara to Willa, a new apprentice
Dear Willa,

I write from the forge at Copperhold, with a request and a story. The story is first, because it is better.

Last month the mine master gave the forge an apprentice. Copper and iron, and a small mind tested at Vell, with a tutor's paper that says: tested on carrying, fetching and fire. It came in the cart with a tag round its neck that said BELLOWS. I did not name it that. Someone at Vell did. It is a joke I have not understood yet.

I decided to start it simply. I said "bring me coal" and pointed at the coal pile. It brought me a lump. I said "more." It brought me a second lump. I said "more" again. It brought me the whole pile, in a cart, and put it on the forge floor. The forge floor is now a coal floor. I do not mind. It is the first time the floor has been full.

That is the story. Now the request.

Your charcoal burns hotter than the coal from the Deep Works, and cleaner. The iron I make with it is better. Could I have twelve sacks a month, delivered by the cart on market day? I will pay in emeralds on the day, eight for each sack of ten. I know it is cheaper than your other buyers. I will make it up in horseshoes.

Bellows can carry the sacks from the cart to the shed. It is very good at that. It will not carry more than one, so it takes a long time, but it never drops one.

If you say yes, I will bring a jar of the pickle my mother makes, which is the only thing in Copperhold that does not taste of iron.

Your friend at the forge,
Dara
%%
Letter: Oren to Nella, first cuttings
Dear Nella,

The apple cuttings took root at the farm. I have marked each row with a small board. Please do not let the sheep eat the boards again.

I am sending you two jars from the Archive kitchen. The honey is from Ambrook, not our own bees. I know you asked for seeds, but I have no seeds to spare before harvest.

The children asked how the first apprentices learned. I told them the tutors showed each crystal one task many times. One learned a row. One learned a sort. The crystal changed from what it was shown. Why it did so, I could not tell them.

Give my thanks to the farm keeper. I will come after the next copying day.

Oren
%%
Letter: Hara to Emmet
Dear Emmet,

You owe me no carrots. The horse came back in good order, and she has been telling the stable wall all about her ride. I think she liked the lower spring.

I am glad the mind answered you plainly. At the school in Three Wells, they showed us a page of its letters. The tutors had scored many answers. A kind answer got a good mark, but a false promise did not. When the mind did not know, it was meant to say so.

That is better than guessing about a dry well. The east field needs water too. I will bring two jars from the town well tomorrow, if the road is firm.

Please do not tie the next rope with a knot you learned from a pig pen.

Hara
%%
Letter: Sella to Pell
Dear Pell,

Your honey reached me in good order. The jar was wrapped in wool and set between two sacks of carrots. The wool is now on the shelf, and the honey is in the pantry. I have not opened it. I am waiting for Hob to come back, since he says he can tell good honey by its smell.

He says this after tasting half a jar at your last visit. I have told him that a nose is not a scale.

The road lamps are all trimmed between the inn and the Brown Hen. Hob worked in the frost until his fingers went stiff. I gave him a bowl of hot broth and sent him to sit by the hearth. He tried to mend the wood store latch first. The hammer with the bent handle is still in the drawer, untouched. I checked.

A cart came from Three Wells at dusk. The driver says the bridge beyond the stream is slick, but the stones are not loose. I have laid straw by the door for anyone who must cross it. The straw is dry and the bundle is tied tight.

Tell Juna I kept the small jar for her. She can have it when she comes this way. The big jar stays here until Hob returns and gives his grand report.

Sella
Halfway Inn
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel, what then
Dear Bel,

Thank you for your letter about the curtain. I have put it on the shelf in the third hall, with the other letters from children. It is next to a letter about a pumpkin that grew into a pig-shaped pumpkin. You are in good company.

You asked what then. I am a clerk, not a tutor. I will tell you what the records say, and then what I think.

What the records say: About the ninetieth year of the archive, a tutor named Orla stood up in the front hall at Vell. She asked whether a mind that was drilled could ever think. People shouted. Some of them wished to say yes, and some wished to say no. She said she did not know either. But she thought there was a way to ask the question that would not need an answer first.

She said: Put a mind behind one curtain and a person behind another. Let the readers send questions by letter. Let both answer. If the readers cannot tell which letter came from the mind and which from the person, then what?

She did not say what. She said only the question. The records keep it as she asked it.

For a long time, nobody could try it, because the minds were simple. They could sort apples or walk a row. They could not answer a letter. But now, with the big minds in the relay houses, people say they can write letters a reader cannot tell from a person's. So Orla's question has come back.

What I think: I think Orla was wise not to answer. If she had said yes, she would have been wrong, perhaps. If she had said no, perhaps wrong too. A question like that is better kept than answered quickly.

I also think a nine-year-old with a curtain has done what most of Vell has not. You tried it.

Please write again.

Oren, clerk of the Archive at Vell

P.S. The honey jar in your last letter was delicious. I mean the one Pell gave you. I got a spoonful. I will not say how.
%%
Letter: Corin to Gil, the new rule
Dear Gil,

The council has made a new rule. No more money for the tutor halls. The drills stop at the end of Thaw. The clerks say the minds have learned all they can, and the money is better spent on roads.

I told the foreman at the slip that a good saw cuts for years. He said a saw does not learn, and a tutor does, so what was the point. Then he went quiet. I did not like the quiet.

You will hear the clerks' version from everyone at Vell. Here is mine. The big boat is nearly planked. The new ramp held through two storms. The apprentices carry planks and nothing else. They are good at it.

Dessa says hello and says the beans are a disgrace. Ned lost a tooth on a plank. He says it was a good plank.

Tell me what Vell is saying, the true version, not the clerks'.

Your brother,
Corin
Shingle End
%%
Letter: Carys to her cousin Bet in Three
Dear Bet,

Thank you for your letter. I am sorry about the spiders in your barn too. Everyone has spiders in the barn. It must be a rule.

Guess what. A tutor from Vell is coming to Saltreach! Not to our school. To the shipyard. Master Corin sent for an apprentice and the tutor is bringing one, all the way down the Long Road. It will take eight days. My father says it will ride in a cart. Imagine a cart with an apprentice in it. Father says no, it walks beside the cart. It can walk all day. I would like to see that.

The whole class is going down to the harbor to watch it arrive. Master Rill says we must not touch it and must not shout. The apprentice has a mind in a crystal and crystals are delicate. That is what he said. Delicate. I am going to be very quiet.

It is autumn here. The boats come back with the last of the fish, and the nets are hung on the wall to dry, and they smell. Mother is making beetroot soup. I do not like beetroot soup but I eat it because there is nothing else.

How are the three wells? Do people throw stones in them? I would.

Your cousin,
Carys

P.S. Tell your mother the honey was good. Tell her thank you. Tell her to send more.
%%
Letter: Marda to Hobb, the thin stew
Hobb,

You will laugh, but I have to tell someone. The stew at the Brown Hen was thin again on the market day, and the carters have started to call it river water. I did not argue. I could not.

Here is what happened. The barley came from the Oak Post, but it was the old sack from the back of the store, and it had been wet at one corner. I did not look. The beans were the small grey ones, the kind that take a whole night to soften, and I put them in at noon, and they did not soften by dark. The bones were from the poor hen, the thin one, which Sella sent up in the cart because she could not feed it. And the salt ran out, so I used the bag from the lime shelf, which I should not have done.

So the pot came out grey and flat, with a skin on it, and a taste like the bottom of a cask. The carters were kind. Dorn said it was very honest stew. Pell said he had eaten worse in Ambrook, and then he went quiet, because he could not remember when.

I have started again. I have soaked the barley, I have checked the salt, I have put a sprig of mint in with the beans. Tomorrow I will try the new flour from Vell, which is white, and which I was saving for the feast.

If the apple cake from your inn is still good, send me a piece by the cart. I need something sweet to make the stew seem less sad.

Marda
The Brown Hen, on the Long Road
%%
Chronicle: the smaller crystals
Year 200, and the years after

This is how it was told to me. I was not there. I set it down as the tutors' notes and the council minutes give it, and where they disagree I say so.

For most of our two centuries a mind lived in a crystal the size of a fist, and a big mind in a crystal the size of a loaf. A crystal has only so much room. The weights of a mind are many numbers, and each number, written plainly, takes many marks. So the councils and the tutors began to write the weights in fewer marks, and to let the small ones become nothing. A mind written so fits in a smaller crystal. It costs a little. The mind is a little less sharp, a little more often wrong. The tutors argued about how much, and the contests settled it: a mind written in fewer marks, grown long on good pages, loses little. Grown short, it loses much. Clank's mind at Copperhold was written this way and worked a season in the fields, and was wrong once where it had been wrong none, and the miner Hesk said that was a fair price for a small crystal.

The councils were pleased, because a small crystal is cheaper and rides easier in an apprentice. The apprentices were pleased, or said nothing, which is the same. The clerks were not pleased. Oren wrote to every tutor: keep a copy of the mind as it was, in a large crystal, in the deep halls, and write down what it lost. Some tutors did this. Some did not. The minutes do not say which, and the shelves do not agree.

Why a mind loses a little when its numbers are rounded, no one wrote down. Why a crystal learns at all, no one wrote down. We keep the numbers and the notes and the small crystals, and we keep asking.

The contest at Vell that summer was won by a mind in a small crystal. It beat a mind in a large one. The tutors said this proved the small crystal was as good. Oren said it proved the test box had one hard page in it. They were both right, as people often are.
%%
Letter: Nessa to Isla, a fair measure
Dear Isla,

Thank you for writing down the steps. I will copy them for the apprentices.

A test page must be kept apart from the drills. If a mind has practiced the page, its good answer tells us little. We need to know whether it can use what it learned on a page it has never seen.

The same unseen drill must go to each hall. Otherwise one tutor may choose easy pages and another may choose hard ones. A fair test is not a gift to any hall.

Please ask Oren to keep the test box shut. He is careful, but he likes to check labels twice.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Hollis to Dace, the salt pie
Dear Mayor Dace,

I am writing about the pumpkin pie at the summer tasting. I know you were polite. I know you ate the whole slice. I saw your face. It was the face of a man who has been brave.

Here is what happened. The sugar and the salt are in two jars on the shelf at the bakery, side by side. They are the same size. They are the same color. Ida says I should have put labels on them. Ida is right. I did not.

I put in a cup of salt. I should have put in a cup of sugar. The pie looked beautiful. It smelled like a pie. It tasted like the sea.

I am sorry. I have sent a new pumpkin pie to the mayor's house with this letter. This one is sugar. I tasted it myself, which I should have done the first time. I also tasted the old one. I will not do that again.

The jars now have labels. Ida wrote them. Sugar is the one with a smile.

Your baker,
Hollis
%%
Saltreach school
(an account written by Carys the next day)

Master Rill took the whole class down to the yard. It was cold and the gulls were loud. We stood in a line along the quay and waited. Bet, it took a long time. The cart came first, up the Long Road, with the tutor asleep in it. She woke up when she saw us.

Then we saw the apprentice.

It is tall. Taller than my father. It is made of copper and iron and it walks on two legs like us but it does not swing its arms. It came down the road beside the cart and every step was the same step. Nobody told us that. The class went quiet. Even Master Rill went quiet.

The tutor is a woman named Sella. She said the apprentice is called Reed. She said Reed has a mind in a crystal and the crystal is inside it and we must not touch it. Reed did not say hello. Sella said apprentices do not talk. I asked how it knows what to do. She said you tell it, and she showed us.

She said: bring me some bread
And Reed went to the cart and brought her bread.

She said: come
And Reed came.

She said: stay
And Reed stayed, and we all went and had our dinner, and when we came back Reed was still there, in the same spot, in the rain. My father says that is better than most of his crew.

Then Corin showed Reed the wood store and the slip. He said: haul
And Reed hauled planks all afternoon from the shed to the slip. It did not stop. The old shipwrights watched it. One of them, Old Sal, said it was a good worker but she would not want it in her boat. Everyone laughed. I did not know why.

Sella said Reed was drilled but not tested yet, and the shipwrights must be patient with it. She says it will make mistakes. Father says so will we all.

I like Reed. I want to give it a name. Sella says Reed is its name. I want to give it another name.

Carys
%%
Letter: Oren to Nessa, the test box
Dear Nessa,

You asked me about the test box, and I have been thinking about it all week, which is not like me. I am a clerk, and I should have an answer ready.

Here is the plain version, as you would want it.

When the clerks copy a drill, they take out the pages that are spoiled. Some are smudged by wet hands. Some are missing a line. Some have an order written on them twice, so the mind would learn that order twice and think it mattered more. Those pages go into the spoiled box and are never used again.

The good pages go into the drill. Those are the ones we show the minds, again and again.

Then there is the test box. It holds pages that no mind is ever drilled on. Not one. The clerks keep it locked, and only the tutors have the key. When a mind is ready for work, the tutor takes it to the test box and shows it pages it has never seen. If it does well, it is sent out. If not, it goes back to the drill.

I asked the clerks why we keep a box of pages that do nothing. They said: because a mind that can only answer what it was shown is not a mind. It is a memory. Nobody sends a memory to the fields.

I thought that was a very good answer, and I wrote it down. Then I spilled tea on it, so it is in the spoiled box now. Please send me a copy.

Your friend,
Oren
%%
Letter: Bryn to Mira
Dear Mira,

We had the first snow on the ridge last night. It came while I was closing the barn and stayed on the roof until the sun reached it. By noon the yard was mud again.

The horses watched the white fall through the open door. The bay horse stretched his nose toward it and sneezed. The chestnut mare ate the last apple from my coat pocket while I was looking out. I should have known better than to keep an apple in that pocket.

Tam came by with a sack of beetroot and the brush I lent him. The brush has lost two bristles and gained a knot of mane. He says the mare did it. I say the mare cannot tie knots. Tam says he saw her trying.

Please send my thanks to Lantern for mending the relay house gate. Tam brought the news on his way back from the tower. The gate no longer swings in the wind, and the hinge no longer cries out at night. This is good for the keeper and bad for the owls, who must find another thing to answer.

I have put a little sack of dried apples with this letter. Keep it in a dry place. If the snow comes again, you can have one with your hot tea. Tam says dried apples are better than fresh ones. Tam also says the bay horse is a fine judge of apples, so I do not trust him.

When the snow stays, I will bring the horses down from the upper pasture. The barn is ready, the water trough is clear, and the straw is stacked high enough to hide the grey horse. He has found that pile already.

Your friend,
Bryn
%%
Letter: Pell to Ambrook, the new well
Dear Mother,

I am writing from the Halfway Inn, where the well went dry in the dry month, and where the whole inn stood round the empty hole like people at a funeral. The innkeeper, Hobb, said he had always known it would happen, which was a lie, because he had told us the well was deep.

We dug a new one behind the stable, in the spring. Three men took turns at the bottom, and the rope was knotted every arm's length so that nobody could fall too far. On the fourth day the spade rang on stone, and then the stone went dark and wet, and the water came up cold and clear.

It is the best water I have tasted since I left Ambrook. Your own well at the mill is better, of course, but do not tell Jory I said so, because he will make the wheel turn faster to prove me wrong.

The carts from Vell are glad of it. The carter, Gorse, filled his barrels twice over and said it was the first good thing to happen on the road this year.

I have bought six jars of your honey from the Brown Hen, where it sells for twice the price, because the innkeeper's wife is a fool for sweet things. She says it tastes of the orchard. I tell her it tastes of you.

Your son,
Pell
%%
Letter: Sable to Lio, summer
Dear Lio,

The house at the edge of Saltreach is still standing. The sea has not carried it off, though the wind tried hard last night. I put a stone on the back door and it stayed shut.

I made twelve candles for the fish market. The first one leaned so far that it looked seasick. I kept it for the kitchen. It is good enough to light the soup.

Please bring the clay jar you borrowed. I need it for beeswax. I know you say you returned it. I found your mark on the handle in your shed.

Come for supper after the nets are mended. There is bread, fish, and beetroot from my little garden.

Your sister,
Sable
%%
Letter: Pell to his sister
Dear Ruth,
You asked for the ledger. I have sent it to you in the cart, wrapped in oilcloth, and you are to read it aloud to Father, so that he understands why I have been so long.
You will find the soup on every other page. It is not very interesting. Marda says soup is the only honest food, because you can see straight through it, and that is why she never uses water twice. You will find the names of the families, which I have written as they gave them, even when the names were not quite true. You will find the coins on the windowsill, which I have drawn in the margin, because Marda would not touch them and I would not waste them.
You will find a page about the horse. I wrote it on the night of the worst cold, when the wind came down from the north and shook the shutters. I wrote it because I could not sleep. The horse was in the stable with the family's oxen, and I went out to check on them, and found Mud standing very still in the straw, looking at the door. She did not look afraid. She looked as if she was waiting for someone. I stood with her for an hour. Then I went back in and wrote about the soup, because that was easier.
The last page is about the road. I am not sure how to explain that one. Marda says it is not a story, it is a list of things I could not put down. I have left it blank at the bottom, in case you want to add something.
Pell
%%
Letter: Quin to Oda, the poor spring
Dear Oda,
I write to you from the market at Three Wells, where I have stood since the first bell with my comb and my fleeces, selling to nobody. I have sold four bundles in two days. Last spring I sold forty. You will know why, because you grow the same things I do at the far field, and you will have had the same rain.
I want to tell you about the lesson, because I have been thinking about it on the cold nights and I cannot stop.
The schoolmistress, Fenna, asked me to come and talk to her children about the apples and the pears, the old lesson from Una's crystal. I went, because I am a carder and I like to talk about wool, and I thought the children would like a story about a sheep. Instead they asked me questions I could not answer.
The worst one was from a boy named Tobin. He asked whether the crystal knew the pears were pears. I said, what do you think? He said, if it only moves the weights a bit, how does it know what a pear is? I said I did not know. He said then how could we trust it to sort anything? I said trust it on pears. He said pears are easy. Then he asked what happens when there are no pears left to show it.
I had no answer. I told him the truth, which is that the tutors do not know either. He went quiet. Then he asked whether the apples in his father's barn were still good. He had forgotten the lesson entirely and was worried about the barn. I was glad he had forgotten, in a way, and sorry too. The lesson went badly. It was supposed to end with a clever boy and a clever crystal. It ended with a barn.
Fenna says I should not worry. She says the children always leave the lesson with something, even if it is a barn. I hope she is right. I do not know what else to teach them.
Oda, this spring is poor. The wheat at my brother's farm is short. The beetroot is soft. The price at the board has gone up for every sack, and the carters say the coast is busy and the roads are empty. I have been asked by three people whether the harvest will be good. I say I do not know, which is true, and which frightens them more than a bad guess.
Please write. Tell me how the sheep are at your farm. Tell me if you have seen any sign of the rain stopping.
Your loving sister,
Quin
%%
Letter: Gale to Len
Dear Aunt Len,

We held a song contest in the store yard after the last cart left. Master Pell said the road workers needed a cheer. The miners came up from the lower path, and the children stood on a bench so they could be heard.

Bera sang about a red hen that laid an egg in the grain bin. Her song had four verses. In the last verse, the hen sat on the mayor's hat. There is no mayor here, so she used Master Pell's cap.

I sang the tune Father hums while he sorts iron. I forgot the second part and sang the first part again. Nobody minded. The miners clapped on the wrong beat, but they clapped loudly.

The prize was a honey cake from the inn. I gave half to Bera. She gave me the corner with the most honey. I think she is sorry about the slate.

The road now reaches the stone yard. Father says we may see a relay tower before I am grown. I want to climb it, if there are steps inside.

Gale
%%
Letter: Hazel to Corin
Dear Corin,

I am the miner at the old Quill place, up the hill. You will not know me. You know my aunt's roof, because you mended it and sent no bill, for which I thank you now. She wrote of you often. She said you were the only man at Saltreach who answered a letter in under a month. I am testing this.

I have a favor, and I will ask it plainly, because that is how we ask where I come from. The spring fair at Saltreach has a prize for the best-kept potato of the winter. I have forty sacks in my cellar, and every one is hard and sweet. I would like to enter. I have no cart that will survive the hill. You have the yard cart, the big one. May I borrow it for one day?

I will bring it back washed. I will bring it back with a sack of potatoes in it, for the yard. I will bring it back with all the wheels on, which I know is not guaranteed.

Please do not tell the neighbors I am entering. They think I am a miner who plays at farming. I would like to be a miner who plays at farming and wins.

Hazel
%%
Letter: Nessa to Mira, a visitor
Dear Mira,

A tutor from Copperhold is coming up the north line this autumn, to see how we drill. Her name is Kiss. She walks fast and talks faster. Please feed her and do not let her near the lamp.

She will want to see your apprentice. Lantern will behave. Lantern always does.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Dace to Kerr
Dear Kerr,

Thank you for your reply. It came by relay on the fourteenth of Blossom.

I have read your account of the test. It is a good test. The apprentice was shown a field of mixed beets and weeds it had never seen before, in a place it had never walked. It picked the beets nine times in ten and left the weeds. That is better than most of my farmers.

You also sent the tutors' note on how the test was made. I was pleased by the last line. "A test is only worth the pages it was kept from." The tutor who wrote that has the soul of a mayor.

I have signed the paper. The apprentice may go to the fields. I have also sent a note to the hamlet saying it is coming. They are pleased. They have a barn wall that needs to go up before the wedding.

Which brings me to my other news. You are invited to the wedding. It will be held in the barn of Mara at the hamlet, on the second of Swarm, if the weather holds. Come early. Bring an appetite. The food is good, and the speeches are short, because I am giving them.

If the apprentice is there, you will see it carry the stones for the new wall. Please do not tell it the wall is for a wedding. It would try to carry the bride.

I am not worried. It is just an apprentice. But I am glad it was tested.

Yours,
Dace
%%
Letter: Hanna to Dara, the wooden ship
Dear Dara,

The ship came, and the twins have not put it down. Toby sails it in the horse trough. Fern says it needs a crew, so she put in a carrot and a very small beetroot. The beetroot is the captain. It has not given an order yet.

You ask again if we will come to Saltreach. That is four times now, and the answer is the same as the other three. Rolf says the wheat will not pack itself into a ship. I would like to see the sea. I would like to see you. I do not want to see the sea from something I cannot get off.

The market on Sowing day was thin. The wool trader's stall was shut. His neighbor says he went south with the whole family and the sheep. That is eleven families from the ridge since last year. Sefa has counted. She keeps the number at the bottom of the tally board. It is in small writing, where nobody has to read it.

Then the lights. Everyone has an opinion. Tam's sister at Northpoint saw them first, and says only that they were not ours. Old Brin says falling stars. The egg woman says fires on the ice. Fern said at supper that they were looking at us. Rolf told her to eat her carrots. She ate her carrots. Then she looked at the window for a while.

We will tie your green ribbon on the east sail on Ribbon Day, as every year. It is the only green one. I like to see it from the kitchen.

Write when you can. Tell me about the salt and the bread and the gulls. Tell me about the ships, but not their size.

Your sister,
Hanna
%%
Letter: Dace to the council of Vell
To the council at Vell,

Three Wells will pay. We owe four hundred emeralds for the glass roof of the big relay house, and we have not paid them. I am sorry. The winter was hard, and the fair did not make what we hoped.

We had the beetroot contest. It was the best one yet. Tam of Kettle Ridge won with a beetroot as big as a cat's head. A child from the school won the essay prize, a blue ribbon, and read her essay aloud by the east well. She wrote about the big mind, and about how nobody can check it alone. People clapped. Some people did not clap. I have thought about that all winter.

The market is good again. The wool sold, and the honey, and the winter apples. I have counted it all twice. Here are four hundred emeralds, in the bag with this letter. Count them. I have.

We should say plainly what we all know. A mind bigger than any tutor can check is a new thing, and we do not know what it will do. We have built the house around it. We keep the quickeners cool. We watch it, with many eyes. That is all we can do, and it is what we have done.

Dace, mayor of Three Wells
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam
Northpoint tower, deep in winter. Mira writes again to Tam. She has read his letter four times. She says it is the funniest letter he ever wrote, and he did not mean it to be.
Dear Tam,
I have been thinking about your fence. I am a tower keeper, and I know nothing of farms, but I know something about quarrels. A quarrel is a lamp that nobody wants to put out. You keep it burning, because it is warm.
Here is my plan.
First, stop nodding. Say hello, even if you do not want to. Brin will be surprised. He may say hello back. If he does not, say it the next day.
Second, invite him to supper. Not for a talk. Just for supper. Make the soup that Mother made, the one with the barley. He loves that soup. I know, because he told me once when he was fourteen.
Third, after the soup, walk out together to the fence. Look at it. Put your hand on it. Say, "Our fathers put this here, and they were both a little right."
If that does not work, you can ask Pip to move it in the night.
In other news, the lamp at the top of the tower is broken again. A pane cracked in the cold. Lantern is up there with a cloth and a pot of glue. He says it will hold. I say he has a faith in glue that I do not share.
Love to Sefa and the mill. Tell the mill it squeaks too loudly. Tell Sefa I said it with affection.
Mira
P.S. I have heard that Dace sent you a ruling. What did it say?
%%
Letter: Briar to Dace, the kitchen roof
Mayor Dace,

The roof is mended, and I am writing to say so before you hear it from the roofers.

On the fourth of Thaw the rain came through the kitchen roof, right over the big pot. It was the soup of the day. It was already thin. By noon it was thinner. We served it as "light soup" and nobody asked.

Your three roofers came on the sixth and worked four days. They laid new reeds from Lowmarsh and tarred the seams.

They also sang. All day. On the roof. Badly. They said they were practicing for the song contest. I said I hoped the contest was far away. They said it was on the last day of Blossom. I said that was not far enough.

The roof is dry. We tried it with a bucket on the first night, and the bucket stayed empty. Cato stood in the kitchen and looked up for a long time. Then he said it was the best roof he had ever seen from underneath.

My bill for the roofers' meals is 6 emeralds: twenty-one bowls of stew and nine loaves. I have sent it to the town box and not to the inn, as agreed. Please do not tell Cato I wrote "as agreed". He thinks it was his idea.

With thanks,
Briar
%%
Letter: Fallon to Bel, about babies
Dear Bel,

Your letter came up with the carrier, folded four times and smelling of the school stove. You asked how many babies I have caught. I counted on my fingers, then my toes, then the cat's toes, which took a while.

The answer is one hundred and six babies. Also four lambs in one snowstorm, and one piglet that would not come out until someone sang to it. Nobody believed me about the singing. Ask Ned.

You also asked what I do when a baby is coming. Here are the true things, not the stories they tell at the inn.

First, I wash my hands in hot water, with soap made from ash and fat. The mother laughs at me. She is glad of it later.

Second, I get the room warm. A good fire, two lamps, a clean cloth on the bed. Babies do not like the cold any more than you do.

Third, I sit down. A midwife who stands for the whole thing gets tired, and tired hands drop things. I breathe slowly, and I ask the mother to breathe slowly too. It is the only trick I know, and it is not really a trick.

Fourth, I wait. A baby keeps its own time. You cannot hurry it with shouting. You can only be ready when it decides.

Scrap carried the kettle up the boardwalk for me last week, and did not spill a drop. I told it to stay at the door while I worked. It stayed six hours, as still as a fence post. The mother asked if it was a guard. I said it was a helper. It had decided to be a guard, though. It is a very good guard.

The first snow came down on the reeds last night. The frogs have gone quiet under the step. The swans went over the marsh in a long line, shouting about it. Old Hob at the ferry says the swans are never wrong. I say they are only loud.

Did you get to be the tree in your school play? You said you would be the tree. Trees are the best parts. Nobody remembers the people who stand next to them.

Your friend,
Fallon
%%
Letter: Sable to Nessa, a mill mind
Dear Nessa,

My cousin Wat has told me about your drill at Vell, and about your rule. I write to ask for a mind for the mill at Harrow Dell, one that carries sacks and does nothing else. I will pay what it costs, in emeralds, in flour, or in service.

I know the first four were made to do one thing each. I know most towns have none. We have none, and we are a mill, and a mill needs carrying.

Please tell me how long it takes. Please tell me what it costs in the drill. And please tell me plainly whether a mind that carries sacks will also carry a cat. Our cat is large and does not wish to be carried, and she is the best judge of a loft.

Your servant in the flour trade,
Sable

Reply from Nessa, tutor at Vell:

Dear Sable,

Your letter is a good one. It is short, and it asks clear questions, which is more than most letters from the north do.

A crystal learns from what it is shown. Why it does, nobody wrote down. We have drilled minds for a long time, and we still do not know the why. We know the drill. A mind is shown the same kind of card again and again. Each time it is wrong, it changes a little, and it is wrong less each time. That is what we can promise, and no more.

A mind for sacks takes about a month of drill, if it is a good mind, and two months if it is a stubborn one. You will know which kind it is by the second week. Do not ask me to make it faster. I have tried, and it did not improve.

It will carry the sacks. It will carry them the same way every time, and it will put them where it was taught. It will not carry your cat. It has no reason to, and it will not be told that cats are a reason. If your cat is in the sack, the mind will carry the cat. Please keep the cat out of the sacks.

Before the mind goes to your loft, we test it on cards it has never seen. If it passes, it goes. If it does not, it stays with us and does the drill again. We will not send it to the mill untested. This is the rule. I am tired of writing it down, but you deserve to read it from me.

One more thing. Your letter says a zombie has been knocking at the gate. Keep the torches lit on that side. A lit torch is a plain answer to a plain nuisance, and it has never failed anyone on the north road.

Yours, with respect for your flour,
Nessa

P.S. from Jeb, in the margin: The boat is in. Dun is singing. The cat is in the boat. We are not sure how.
%%
Letter: Sorrel to Briar, one song twice
Briar,

I hear the inn's choir will sing "The Reapers of Kettle Ridge" at the contest. So will the school.

The school has sung it every spring for twelve years. We have a boy who does the low part, and he is very proud of it. I cannot ask forty children to forget a song because the inn chose it second.

I do not say the inn must change. I say the judges will remember two choirs with one song. They will not remember it kindly.

Three ways out:
1. The inn sings something else. I am told you have a very good song about soup.
2. The school sings something else. I will not do this. I mention it so you know I thought of it.
3. We sing it together, as a round. The school starts. The inn comes in after four lines.

I prefer the third. It would be loud. It would also be the first time the school and the inn have agreed since the matter of the lamp boy.

Sorrel
School house, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Gale to Tam
Dear Tam,

The wind is hard on this farm. It came off the sea all night and lifted the shed roof again. The oak boards you sent held, but one peg worked loose. I have set a stone on the board until I can mend it.

I have been trying a new order with the apprentice. I wrote, "Bring the small hammer from the bench and stay by the cow stall." It brought the hammer, then stood beside the stall. Before this winter I would have had to give two orders.

Pell says I should not call that understanding. He says the mind has learned which whole sentence goes with which work. Perhaps he is right. I only know I used fewer words, and the hammer was the right one.

The cow is still ill. She drank some water today and ate a little hay. Wren has not come yet. Please tell me if you hear when she leaves Saltreach.

Your friend,
Gale
%%
Letter: Cress to Nessa, the barn
Dear Nessa,

You said to write if the ridge went badly. It has gone badly once. I am writing before I lose my nerve.

Yesterday I gathered the ridge in the barn to show what a tested mind can do. I had Scoop, Sefa's new apprentice, sort flour sacks from wheat sacks. At Vell it scored ninety-seven in a hundred on the test box. I told them so. I said it twice, I am sorry to say.

Then Scoop sorted twenty sacks and put nineteen on one pile.

I did not know what to do. The barn was very quiet. Then old Brin laughed, and the whole barn laughed with him. Sefa did not laugh. Sefa looked at me as if I had sold her a sack of sand.

A girl from Three Wells was standing at the back. She is Ida the baker's daughter. She had been told to stay quiet, and she had been quiet for a long time. Then she said, "Why not tip some from each sack into a bowl?"

I asked what she meant. She said Scoop only ever looked at the sacks, and the sacks here are all different. Sefa uses any sack she has. Patched ones, dyed ones, one with a hen on it.

She was right. At the tutor house our wheat sacks are brown and our flour sacks are white. They have always been brown and white. Scoop never needed to look inside. The cloth told it.

We tipped a handful from each sack into a bowl and set the bowls in a row. Scoop sorted the bowls. Eighteen of twenty right.

I do not know what to make of this. The test box said ninety-seven. The test box was brown sacks and white sacks as well. I tested it on pages like its drills. I did not test it on a barn.

Should I stay? I have seven more apprentices to drill, and one of them has just walked into a pig pen for the second time.

Your pupil,
Cress
%%
Letter: Nella to Oren, a gift
Dear Oren,

I have made you a little wooden box for the drill cards. It is oak, and the hinge is a copper pin. The lid sticks, but it will stay shut if you press the left corner.

The children helped sand it. They wanted to put an apple on top, so I let them draw one on the lid. The apple has five leaves and one stem. They say it is a fine apple.

I have also found the letter you lost last summer. It was under the loose board by the farm door. The ink is faint, but the words are clear. I will send it with the box.

Keep the cards dry. The children know not to touch them now.

Nella
%%
Letter: Corin to Hazel, the fair prize
Dear Hazel,

You may keep the cart for a week. It has not been so well asked in years.

You also have my apologies. I did not know you had entered until I was handed the judge's apron. They gave it to me because I know nothing about potatoes and so can be fair. This is the custom at Saltreach. I was told I would be excellent at it.

Here is what happened. Fourteen entries. Each was set on a board with its owner's name hidden under a cloth, and each was cut in half, and each half was looked at. A good winter potato is firm all through. A bad one is soft, or grey, or has a ring inside it like a bad apple.

Entry one was soft. Entry two was soft and a little sad. Entry three, I am told, belonged to Mayor Lenn, and I said nothing. Entries four to ten were fair. Eleven was very good. I thought for a while that eleven would win.

Then I cut twelve. It was white and clean and as hard as a stone. I cut another from the same sack. The same. And another. I was handed a cup of water, since I seem to have gone quiet.

Entry twelve was yours.

The prize is a barrel of Saltreach salt and a blue ribbon. The barrel was rolled up the hill this morning by two boys who say they want to be paid in potatoes. I have said yes on your behalf. You will have to get used to it.

Mayor Lenn asked me what your secret was. I said I did not know, but you were a miner. He said that explained it. I do not think it explained anything, but he looked satisfied.

I will say one thing more. I mended your aunt's roof, and I think you will do well on that hill. Come to the yard for tea. Bring a sack. I will show you the new keel.

Corin
%%
Letter: Bryn to Tilda
Dear Tilda,

You asked me how a crystal can tell an apple from a pear. It cannot see. It cannot taste. I will tell you what I was told at Vell, and I will try to say it plainly.

A crystal has numbers inside, called weights. At first they are all wrong. A crystal looks at a fruit, which is described to it in a few marks, for the color, the roundness and the weight in the hand. Then it guesses. It has no idea, so it guesses badly.

When it is wrong, the tutor does a small thing. She moves each of the weights a little, in the direction that would have made the answer right. Only a little. Then she shows it the next fruit.

Over a hundred fruit, a thousand, the weights settle. It is right more often than it is wrong. It is right nearly every time.

The first time this was done, by a woman called Una, she did it with apples and pears. The crystal learned to sort better than the children at her village, who were not so quick. That is the story.

I saw it done on the table at Vell. The tutor gave it a fruit. It said pear. It was an apple. She moved the weights. She gave it another. It said apple. It was an apple. She moved nothing.

I asked her why it works. She did not know. I asked if anyone did. She said, "Nobody wrote it down."

I liked her for that.

Your uncle,
Bryn
%%
Letter: Mab to Ruel, a long summer
Dear Ruel,
It has been a long summer, so this letter will be long too. Sit down.
The fox came back on the first hot night, as I said it would. Father sat up with the broom and a lantern, and the fox ate the lantern's bell. We now have a broom with no bell on it and a fox with a sore tongue. Father says that is a fair trade.
The hay is in, and it is the best we have had since you went to Vell. The potatoes are fair. The beans did poorly in the wet corner, so I have moved them to the slope. Ruel, when you come home, do not say I told you so about the slope. I know you were going to say it.
The copper men have finished the cut under the orchard. They have a lift now, and a cart road to the mill, and every evening there is a line of them at the well with dust on their faces. They are kind men. One of them brings me a bit of the green stone every week and tells me its name. I have forgotten them all. He says that is my right.
The relay house is growing at the foot of the hill tower. The masons laid the stone in the spring, and now there is a roof and a stove and a room with a stand in it. They have not put the big mind on the stand. They say it will go in when the cooling is ready. Father went up to look and came back quiet. He said the room is cold even in Longday, and the stand has a ring of water channels round it, like a moat for a very small castle. I asked him what it was for. He said quickeners, and I should not ask him to say it twice.
The Three Wells school had its summer show. Bel's essay was read aloud in the square. Her title was "Why the Wells Are Three". She said it was because the old people could not agree on how many there should be, and the wells decided it for them. The crowd laughed and then went quiet, and then Dace said it was the finest essay he had ever heard, and he did not say that about his own son.
I have been thinking about what Isla said in her letter to Tove, which Tove read to me. The towers are for something. Nobody has said what. I think the councils want the minds to answer the whole land, every town and every field, so nobody has to walk a day to ask a question. That is a good thing to want. But Father says a good thing can be wanted badly, and that a mind which answers everyone may end up answering only the people who shout.
Do not frighten yourself. It is a letter from your mother, and I am only tired.
Come home at Blossom. The bee boxes need a man who can count them. Father says he is too old, and I say he is too stubborn, and we are both right.
Your loving mother,
Mab
%%
Letter: Nessa to Dace, the song contest
Dear Dace,

Thank you for the invitation. I will come to the autumn song contest at Three Wells, and I will bring the visiting tutor from Copperhold, Kiss, who has been staying at my house and has sung every night for a week. Her voice is loud. Her tune is not always the tune.

You asked whether a tutor may enter. I asked the rules. They say anyone who lives within a day's walk. Kiss lives three days away. She says she will sit on the second day's cart and walk the rest.

She wishes to sing a song about the curve. She says Isla's finding is the best thing to happen to the tutor houses in her lifetime, and it should have a song. I said it is a hard thing to put into verse. She said, "You have not heard it."

I have. It is quite good. The chorus is: bigger, longer, more to read, and the curve will tell you what you need.

You may not like it, Dace. But the children will.

Yours,
Nessa
%%
Letter: Edda to Master Vale
Dear Master Vale,

I am at the Halfway Inn with my aunt. We came for the market at Three Wells, but the north road has flooded near the little bridge. We will wait here until the water goes down.

The innkeeper has let me sit at the end of the table. A crew of apprentices is repairing the yard wall after a cart struck it. I watched from the door. The crew first set a rail around the stones and moved the loose ones into a pile. It counted the sound stones and checked them against a list.

Then the apprentices began to work through their order cards. One carried cobblestone from the store. One placed it by the wall. One checked the face of each stone against the pattern board. They did not all do the same task. The crew changed its work when the pile ran short.

The innkeeper said the big mind had made the plan. I asked how it knew which stones were broken. He said it had not seen the wall. The apprentices sent a message from the yard, and the big mind helped them choose what to do next. It could answer through the relay, but the crew had to look, count, and carry.

A card came loose and blew under a bench. One apprentice stopped the work, found the card, and put it back with the others. The innkeeper said this was a good example of why a crew needs a clear plan. I think it was also a good example of why the door should be shut on windy days.

I asked whether the apprentices can make a plan for every job. My aunt says no one can plan for every loose stone or wet board. The crew can ask the big mind when it reaches something new. It can also wait for a person to decide. I like that answer better than saying the big mind knows everything.

I hope the road dries soon. The innkeeper has started charging us for extra bread. Aunt says I should stop asking for second helpings if I want to complain about the cost.

Your pupil,
Edda
%%
Letter: Mags to Pim
Dear Pim,
You asked me in your letter whether your mother's crystal was really the one Una used. I can tell you that. I was there the summer she did it, a girl with a basket and no sense, sitting on the wall outside the mill.
It was a small crystal, the colour of a pond on a grey day. It sat on a red cloth on the table, and Una would not let anyone touch it except herself. The apples were from our orchard. The pears were from the Halfway, and they were not very good pears, and Una said that was a good thing, because a crystal should learn on bad fruit too.
There was a day when it got the same pear wrong eleven times in a row. The children laughed. Your mother did not laugh. She sat with it for an hour and moved the weights, one at a time, very small, and then she put the pear down and said: again.
On the twelfth time it was right. Nobody cheered. Una only smiled at the pear and put it in her basket and ate it. It was a bad pear, so she said.
So yes, it was that crystal. And I think you should be proud, because your mother was patient with it when nobody else would have been.
Your loving aunt,
Mags
%%
Letter: Merle to Nessa
Dear Nessa,

The market is over. The square is empty. The stalls are down and the east field is a field again, with hoofprints in it and one lost red mitten.

The gelding is coming home tomorrow. I have brushed him twice and fed him well. He has eaten a third apple. I did not give it to him. He found it. I do not know where. He is a horse.

The apprentice learned a great deal at the market. It learned the honey jars and the clay pots and the wool. It learned to stand out of the way of carts. It learned that children are fast and low and you must watch your feet. It learned that the bells ring at noon and that when the bells ring, you stop and look at the tower, because everyone else does. I do not know why it does that. I do not know why any of us do that.

On the last morning it came to the stable and stood by the gelding's stall. The gelding put his head over the door. The apprentice did not move. They stood a long time. Then the apprentice walked away. The gelding watched it go.

I have been thinking about what you said. There is something to learn in a stable. There is the horse, and there is the quiet, and there is the thing where you stand near a warm animal in a cold morning and do not need to say a word. I do not know if that can be drilled. I hope it can. I think it would be good for it.

The fence rail is mended. The plank is gone. The apprentices have found a new fence to lean on. I am not surprised.

I will bring the gelding back in the morning. Tell the brown gelding he is a good horse. I have told him, but he does not listen to me.

Your friend,
Merle
%%
Letter: Bel to the Archive
Dear Oren,

We did Orla's test at school. I am telling you because Teacher said that the Archive likes to hear about things that happen in classrooms.

Teacher Ida put up a curtain across the room. Behind it sat Fenn, with a pen. Also behind it sat the keeper's boy from the relay tower, who brought slips from the relay house. We sent each question two ways. Fenn wrote an answer. And the keeper sent the same question down the line to the big mind on its stand, and its answer came back in the keeper's hand. Teacher mixed up the slips so we could not tell which was which.

We sat on our side. We wrote questions and passed them to the curtain. Two slips came back each time.

My question was: What is your favorite color? The first slip said "green, like new peas." The second said "I do not have one, but I like the color of copper." I said the first was Fenn. I was wrong. The first was from the big mind, and the keeper had asked it to answer like a child. Fenn wrote the copper one. He said he was being funny.

Teacher said that was the point. She said Orla, who was a tutor at Vell long ago, asked this: if a person and a mind both answer the same questions by letter, and the readers cannot tell which is which, what then?

I asked, what then? Teacher said nobody knows. People have argued over it for a hundred years. Some say the mind thinks. Some say it only seems to. Some say the question is silly.

I do not know what I think. I would like to ask the big mind what it thinks of Fenn.

I wrote this letter very neatly. Please keep it.

From Bel, age nine, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Zell to Corin
Dear Corin,
Winter has come early to Vell. The Archive gives out lamp oil by the spoon, and I am writing by a candle I bought from a woman in the lane. She sells them cheap. I did not ask why.
I have heard you build ships at Saltreach, big ones, and that people are boarding them. Some say it is for a great fishing trip. Some say it is to find what is across the water. My neighbor says it is to leave. I do not know what to believe, so I am asking the one man who knows.
I have a request, too. A dyer needs a color from the sea. Do you know the grey-blue of the water at the harbor wall, in the half hour before dawn? I have been trying to make it for a year. I cannot. It is too cold a color for any plant I know.
Would you send me a jar of that water? Not for drinking. For looking. I will hold it up to the window and try again.
And would you write? Pell says he sent you a letter and you did not answer. He is worried. So am I. A shipwright is a hard man to reach.
We moved last month. It is a smaller house, with a green door. The dye room is warm. The snow is on the lid. The cat has the sunniest corner. We are well.
There is talk at the Archive, which I do not understand. The clerks have been told to copy all they can. Oren says they are working double. I asked what for, and he said he did not know. He looked tired.
Write if you can. If the letter goes astray, I will write you another.
Your friend, Zell
%%
Letter: Nella to Wren
Dear Wren,

I found the three emeralds in the blue jar. They are all there, though Moss has written "cough syrup" on the lid in large letters. I knew better than to drink from it.

The frost has made the boardwalk boards shrink. I put a strip of wool beside the loose post, but it slid into the water. I will bring oak pegs from my brother's shed and fix it properly. Please tell Moss not to wedge a pumpkin under it again. The pumpkin is now in the fish weir, and the fish are not impressed.

Our children have begun making little lanterns from glass scraps. They hung one by the well, then argued about whose turn it was to watch it. I told them the lamp does not need watching. They took turns anyway.

Nella
%%
Letter: Oren to Tam, the barn crew
Dear Tam,

You asked me to write down what I saw, since you do not trust a rumor from Pell and you do not trust me much either. The crew has finished the barn. Here it is, for your farm book.

The crew is six apprentices from the Three Wells storehouse, hired by the day. Trowel builds. Cog hauls. Dot sorts the planks by size. Thimble keeps the tally. Sprout minds the posts. Ladle brings the water, because somebody must.

Day one. Nothing. They stood in front of the pile of planks and looked. Marta said they were sulking. I said they were planning. We were both right.

Day two. The cards went up on the wall of the old shed. Fetch posts. Haul. Build. Store. After a while, more cards, in a second row, for the roof.

Day three. Dot sorted four hundred planks into eight piles. Not one in the wrong pile. I checked. I am a clerk. It is what I do.

Day four. Trowel took the plumb line off its hook, a string with a stone, and used it to check that the wall stood upright. Nobody asked it to. Then it hung the line back on the same hook. I have worked with carpenters who could not manage that.

Day five. The cart stuck. I have told Nessa about that. They asked, and they were answered, and they went on.

Day six. Thimble set out the nails on the counting board and found twelve short. Marta had counted wrong. Marta has not been told.

Day nine. The barn stood. Marta put her hand flat on the door and said it was the best door she had ever had. The crew stood in a row in the yard, still and shining. They looked at the barn. I do not know what they were looking for. I do not know what they saw.

I do not say they think as you or I do. I say they were drilled for a long time, and given tools, and given a place to ask. Then they did the work as a good crew does it. Nobody told them how. The tutors told them how to learn, and that is a different thing.

How is Pip? I would like to hear that it still pulls the wrong carrot.

Oren
%%
Letter: Maud to Yew, the pie
Dear Yew,

I have to tell you the truth about the pie contest. I did not win. I was second. Ruby Oke won with a honey and pumpkin pie, and I want it on record that my stew was not beaten. Only my pastry was beaten, and that was because the flour came in damp.

Hesk says the flour came from the Ambrook cart, which is a lie, because the Ambrook cart came on time. He says it was the wet. He said it in a voice I did not like, so I did not argue with him. I argued with the flour instead, which is more useful.

The festival was otherwise a fine day. The children sang at the north well, and the pipe band came up from Vell, which was nice, and the drum was too loud, which was not. The prize for the best pumpkin went to Tobin, whose pumpkin was the size of a small cart. He carried it round the square with both arms, like a baby, and would not put it down until the mayor asked him twice.

The lamp at the mine gate has been cleaned, by Ned. Nobody asked him to. He did it by himself, which was a surprise to all of us, and he has asked to be paid in pastry. I have agreed, but not with the flour from Ambrook.

Keep your lantern clean. The children will want it back in the morning.

Maud
Cook at the mine gate, Copperhold
%%
Letter: Corin to his sister Maud
Dear Maud,

I am sorry about the horse. You will hear it from someone else if I do not tell you first.

The boat needed a keel, and the man with the oaks was up the coast, and the cart was in the slip with a broken wheel. So I borrowed your grey. I did not ask. I know. I will say it plainly: I borrowed your grey horse without asking, and I am sorry, and I will bring her back.

She is well. She is better than well. She pulls like an ox and eats like a pig and has made friends with the shipyard cat, who sits on her back in the sun as if she had always been there.

That cat will not stay out of the boat house. It sleeps in the wood store, on the good oak, and leaves hairs on everything. Two men have tried to shut the door. The cat waits. Somebody opens the door. That is the story of the cat.

I will bring the horse on the first of Frost, with a sack of apples for her trouble and a barrel of salt fish for yours.

Your brother,
Corin
%%
Letter: Nell to Dara, our guest
Dear Dara,

You asked in your last letter if anything ever happens at Sandhook. Sit down. Something has happened. His name is Tam.

He came a week ago with a cart, a tired mare and a hat that had seen better years. He is a farmer from Kettle Ridge, and his sister keeps the relay at Northpoint. He wanted kelp for his potatoes. I said, we have kelp. We have more kelp than anyone has ever wanted. He said he would take a cartful, and I could see he did not know how much a cartful is.

I put him in the net loft. He thanked me three times. Then he fell over the nets. Then he thanked me again.

At supper I set a whole fish in front of him, head and all. He looked at the fish and the fish looked at him. "It's staring," he said. I said, it is dead, Tam. He said, "That is what worries me. It stares anyway." Then he ate it, and said it was the best thing he had ever eaten. A man with sauce on his chin does not lie.

Then the storm. You will have heard. The net loft lost half its roof, and Tam climbed up in the rain and held what was left with his back and his cart cover, like a man holding a door against a bear. He stayed until the wind turned. Little Cass sat under him with a lantern and gave him orders from below. He followed every one.

The Patient came home. Fen is well. The whole hamlet is well.

But the lamp on the Saltreach tower went out in the storm and has not come back. The keeper sent a boy running with word. A glass pane is broken, the copper ring is bent, and she needs hands and a ladder. Tam heard it at breakfast. He put down his spoon. He said, "I would like to see that." I said, it is a tall thing with a light on top. He said, "That is exactly what I would like to see."

So he walked to Saltreach this morning with a coil of rope and a full stomach. I put a fish in his pocket for luck. I put another in his hat, because he forgot his hat.

Come in Longday. I will have a bed.

Your sister,
Nell
%%
Letter: Tomas to Ila, after the flood
Dear Ila,

I will tell you the rest, since you were not here, and since Mother will want to read it aloud to the whole street. Do not let her skip the bits about the cow.

The flood came up the back of the farm like a fox coming up a hill. It did not hurry. It only came. Juna got the children up into the loft with the blanket and the lamp, and then she went out in the water for the hens, which is the most Juna thing I have ever seen. She came back with nine hens under her arms and one on her head, and the one on her head was furious.

Ferris came down the road the next morning on his horse, shouting that he had lost his hat. We found it in the cow trough. The cow had eaten the brim. The cow is not sorry.

The apprentices from the mill were the real heroes. I did not know apprentices could be heroes. I thought they only carried things. But they stood in the water at the bridge all night with the cart rope in their hands, and when the water pushed, they leaned back and held. The mill keeper said he had given them one order, which was to hold, and that they had held. Then he said the water had made them a little bit brave, and the mill keeper does not say things like that.

Pim went out in the flood for the mill, on his own. I was very cross with him. Then I was very proud of him, and then Juna was cross with me for being proud, which I deserved.

The plank at the bend is gone. Father says he will make a new one from the old oak, the one we cut for the gate. I said that is a shame, and he said it is a better use than the gate.

Write when you can. Tell me about the city of the sea, and whether it has a flood too. Tell me if the boats are still going out.

Your brother,
Tomas

P.S. The cow is called Dun. She is still sulking. She has eaten the hat, the brim, and a bit of Pim's shirt. Nobody has the heart to take them back.
%%
Letter: Bel to the archive
To the archive at Vell, from Bel at Three Wells, age nine.

My teacher set us a question. She said a tutor named Orla asked it long ago. Can a drilled mind think? I will tell you what I think.

My father has a sorting crystal at the market. It sorts apples and pears. It was shown apples and pears, and when it sorted one wrong, the tutor moved its weights a little toward the right answer. That is how Una of Ambrook did it, my teacher says. Now it sorts better than me. But I do not think it thinks, because it does not know it is sorting. It does not want the apple. It does not say "that pear is small and I will keep it for myself." It just sorts.

But here is my question. If a mind wrote me a letter, and I could not tell it was a mind, and it asked me how I was, and I wrote back, and it wrote again, would it be thinking then? I think yes. Because you cannot ask how someone is without thinking about them a little.

My friend Cora says the test is a trick. She says the readers cannot tell because they are kind, and they want the mind to pass, so they guess wrong. I say then the mind passed anyway, and we should give it a name.

I have never seen a big mind. The relay house at Three Wells has a big mind now, and my father says it answers questions through the relays. I want to write it a letter and ask it what it thinks of Orla's question. If it writes back, I will send you its answer too.

Please keep this in the archive.

Bel, age nine, the school house by the east well
%%
Letter: Hesk to Gale, the count board
Gale,

I am writing this from the mine hall, where I have been sitting all morning with the count board and a cup of tea that went cold an hour ago. The count board says seven miners are below. Six names are on the shaft head board. I have been trying to work out which one of us cannot count, and I think it is me.

Here is the trouble. Clank has learned to rub out the names coming up. He saw us do it a hundred times and now he does it too, and he is quick about it, and I am proud of him. But he has also learned to rub out the names of miners who have not come up yet, because he does not like to see a name sitting there alone on the board. He thinks it is untidy. So the board says four below and the count says seven and the kitchen has made six suppers, and we have all been very polite to each other over a mistake that is entirely mine.

I have told him. He understands. He nodded. He rubbed out a name while I was telling him not to, but I think that was an accident. He is a good apprentice and a hard worker and I would not trade him for three trained minds. I just need him to understand that a name on the board is a promise, and you do not break a promise to make a board look neat.

The seam on the fourth level is good. Gale's copper is the best we have had in a year. Send her my regards and tell her the lift is mended, and I am sorry about the oil.

Now I am going to go and count the miners again, slowly, out loud, with my finger on the board. If there are seven, I will ring the bell twice, which is the signal for all well. If there are six, I will ring it once and go and look. That is the rule. I made the rule. I know the rule.

Send the sorting shed a new bin. The coal bin is full and the iron bin is full and the copper bin is full and the fourth bin, which is for the things that are none of those, is full of frogs. Do not ask.

Hesk
The mine hall, Copperhold
%%
Letter: Dessa to Mave, the honey cake
Dear Mave,

You asked how the honey cake went. I will tell you the truth, because you always know when I am lying.

I took your recipe down from the shelf. Four eggs. A cup of flour. Soft butter. Dark honey from the hive behind Ruth's wall. Then the steps: beat the eggs, fold in the flour, stir in the honey, bake until brown.

I beat the eggs. Good. I folded the flour. Good. Then I reached for the honey jar, which stands on the left, where the salt is kept. The lid looked like honey. It was not honey. Ned had moved the salt. He says he did not. He is seven, and he says a great many things.

So the cake went into the oven with a whole cup of salt in it. It came out brown on top and very pleased with itself.

Ned ate one slice. He said it was the best thing he had ever tasted. Then he went out to the step and was sick in the bean rows. Corin says the beans have never been so surprised.

There are eleven cakes on the shelf now. Even the gulls will not touch them. I am thinking of sending one to the council, with a note that says: this is what happens when the rules are wrong.

Tell me the true way to make it. Do not write "a pinch". I have had enough of pinches.

Love,
Dessa
%%
Letter: Edda to Teacher Sorrel
Dear Teacher Sorrel,

I am writing from the Brown Hen. We stopped here on the Long Road because the cart wheel came loose. Father is fixing it beside the stable. The innkeeper gave me a place by the window to do my lesson.

There are two apprentices in the yard. They are sorting sacks of apples and carrying them into the store. One checks the mark on a sack, then carries it to the right pile. The other brings an empty sack back to the cart.

The innkeeper says they are working from a plan. I asked who wrote it. He said the apprentices wrote the order cards after asking the big mind at the relay house. They had a long job, so they broke it into small steps. First they counted the sacks. Then they sorted them. Then they carried them inside.

I thought the big mind told them every step. The innkeeper says it did not. It helped when the apprentices had a question. They still had to look at the sacks and do the work.

Father says I should learn to mend a wheel before I write about one. I shall try tomorrow.

Your pupil,
Edda
%%
Letter: Oren to Wren, the test box
Dear Wren,

Your question is a good one, and the answer will sound like fussiness. It is not fussiness. It is the most important work we do in the copying room, and I am sorry about the paper.

A drill is a box of pages. The mind is shown a page, it guesses, it is told the right answer, and it changes a little. It is only as good as the pages we give it.

Copies go out first. If one page sits in the drill twenty times, the mind learns that page by heart. It looks clever on the drills and dull on everything else.

Spoiled pages go out next. A smudged word, or a line in the wrong place, teaches the wrong thing. Tibb marks them with a red ribbon, and anything with a red ribbon goes in the bin.

Then the test box. It holds pages that never go into a drill. When the drilling is done, we test the mind on the test box and count the right answers. If it answers the test box well, it has learned the lesson. If it answers only the drill well, it has learned the pages.

One rule matters more than the rest. A page in the test box must never be in a drill, not even a copy of it. If one page sits in both, the mind passes by remembering, and it fails the first time it meets a page nobody has seen. That is the cheat, and the clerks are sworn against it.

Where the old pages came from is not for me to say. The copying room does not agree with itself about it, and I would rather say nothing than guess.

Check the box twice before you send it back. Your letter made me do the same.

Yours,
Oren
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the wedding
Dear Mira,
Linnet married Wick on the first of Frost, in our barn. The hall at Three Wells was full of Dace's notices, and the barn is warmer.
The cake was made by Linnet's mother, with honey and dried apples from Ambrook. I dropped it on the barn floor on the way to the table. Eight people ate it off the floor anyway. Nobody got sick.
The cow came in through the door during the speeches. Nobody had asked it. It walked the length of the barn and stood by the bride, and Linnet said: well, she is family too.
Write and tell me about your snow. I have had nothing from the north since the last cart.
Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Greer to Sim, the wedding
Dear Sim,

The wedding was on the reed bank, as planned, and it rained on it, as planned. Nobody minded. Ruth wore her mother's blue dress with a patch on the back, and she looked better than anyone.

The fiddler played four songs before the rain got into his box. The boat house was full of cakes. Wren gave the bride a jar of honey and a long talk about keeping it dry. Oddly, Wren was right, and the honey is still good.

The Lowmarsh boys and the Saltreach boys had a race through the mud. The Lowmarsh boys won, because they know where the deep mud is. I will not say which of the Saltreach boys went in the water first. You know who.

Come to the next market at Lowmarsh. Bring a dry coat.

Greer
%%
Letter: the boy with the cart
Dear Mother,

I am at Lowmarsh. I am well. The cart came down the boardwalk safe, with the apples. Two of them fell in the reeds, and a frog took one, and I think it liked it.

The people here are kind. Wick the weaver gave me a bowl of stew and a bed by the loom. The loom is very loud at night, but it stops at the bell, so I can sleep after that.

I met Wren, the healer. She has a green cloak and high shelves of jars. She showed me the apprentice Moss, which is small and copper, and which carries water very carefully. It did not look at me. It looked at the jars. Wren says it is learning the names of the herbs, and it is getting them right, mostly.

Tell Father the mill pond is high here. The water is brown and slow, and the boats go through the reeds like they have nowhere to be. I think he would like the reeds. I would like him to see them.

I will come home at the first cart. Please keep my bed warm, and keep the cat off it. The cat knows it is my bed, and it sleeps there only to make me feel silly.

Your son,
Ned

P.S. The wheel fell in the reeds. Everyone says it was only the water. Nobody says the water was to blame for anything else.
%%
Letter: Sorrel to Fen
Sorrel, schoolteacher at Three Wells, writes to Fen the weaver, in autumn. The fair is over.
Dear Fen,
The ribbon was made by the children in an afternoon. It is red. It has a bow at one end and a stripe at the other. They put on a lot of glitter, which came from the glass shop, and which will be in my classroom until spring.
The children are very proud. They stood in the square at the fair and watched you lead your ewe to the judges. When the judge put a hand into the wool, the whole school held its breath.
You know what happened. The judge said the fleece was fine. She said it was even. She said it was thick. She gave the ewe second prize.
First prize went to a ewe from Kettle Ridge. Nobody minded. The ribbon from our school was the best-looking thing in the pen.
The children want to know whether Class is disappointed. I told them sheep are never disappointed. They have no concept of it. But I looked at her in the pen, and she looked at me, and I am not sure.
At any rate, the children ate a pie each and the afternoon was a success. The baker gave us all a honey cake. You were kind to lend the ewe.
Come and see us soon. The school is yours. So is the straw.
Sorrel
%%
Letter: Oren to Nessa
Nessa,

The council met. They want the tutors to write their minds in fewer marks, so the apprentices' crystals can be smaller and cheaper. They said the words "small cost" and looked at me.

I read your note. The cost is real. I told them so. They said: a little cost is worth a small crystal. I could not argue, because they are right about the money and I am right about the minds, and both can be true.

So here is what I ask. When you write a mind this way, write down what it lost. Keep the numbers. Keep a copy of the mind as it was, in a large crystal, in the deep halls where it is cool. If a small crystal goes wrong in a field, we will want the large one to compare. The archive has no roof, it has a hill, and the hill can hold a few extra crystals.

Also: your jar. The honey from Ambrook. Do not leave it by the drill box. An apprentice knocked the last one down and Clank stood in it.

Oren

P.S. Write everything down.
%%
Letter: Bryn to his sister
Dear Mara,

I am coming home. The cart is mended, the load is delivered, and the road from Vell is dry. I will be at the farm by the end of the week.

Put a bed in the loft. Put a pie on the table. Tell the dog I have not forgotten him.

Tell the children I have a surprise. It is a small crystal, and it sorts apples from pears. A tutor at Vell lent it to me for the summer, so I could show it to the family. It is not a toy. It is a very good tool. But it is a little like a toy.

I have never been so glad to be on my way to anywhere.

Bryn
%%
Letter: Lyle to Nessa
Dear Nessa,

Sella says you are teaching the layered mind at the tutor room. I would like to understand it before Hesk explains it at supper. He knows the names of the parts, but he puts them in the wrong order when he has eaten.

I am a cheesemaker, not a tutor. Tell it to me as if I were weighing curds.

I heard that the first layer gives its finding to the next, and the next gives its finding onward. But I do not see how a deep mind can learn from a wrong answer if the first layer never sees the last one.

Also, I have sent a small round of cheese to the tutor house. It is mild, and it will not offend a crystal. If the apprentices eat it, please tell them not to leave the rind under the bench. Clank did that with the last one, and I found it by smell.

The cow has stood up today. She drank water and took a little hay. Wren says this is a good sign, but she has not promised anything.

Your neighbor,
Lyle
%%
Letter: Cass to the harbor master
Sir,

I keep bees on the hill above the market and I make cheese. I have taken a stall at the spring market for nine years. That is good. This year I want to ask for a place near the harbor wall, not by the slip. The shed by the slip has a bench and a roof, and last year I had my cheese on it, and it was good for the shade and bad for the noise. The shipwrights work all night now. I hear the hammers from my hill. My soft cheese needs quiet and a cool place.

I do not complain about the shipwrights. They have work, and work is good. I only ask for the wall.

Also, my neighbor Nil is home. He can help me fetch and carry. He is strong and he is quiet now.

Yours,
Cass, cheesemaker
%%
Letter: Fallon to Cob, from town
Cob,

The baby came at dawn, a big boy with a voice like a gate. Mother and boy are both well. Wren says the honey helped. I say the mother helped. We are both right.

Do not let Scrap feed the pigs from the apple barrel. Last time it fed them one bucket at a time, very neatly. The pigs decided it was a festival.

I will be home when the boardwalk dries. The reeds go dark early now, so keep the torches lit.

Fallon
%%
Letter: Rell to Cass, the first plans
Dear Cass,

Thank you for copying the page. I have pinned it beside the drill board, where the apprentices can read it after their lesson.

The idea is plain when written slowly. First, make trials with crystals of different sizes. Give each mind a known amount of clean writing. Let each one learn for a known time, then test it on pages it never saw. Write down what it can do. The results show a curve. The curve helps a tutor choose how large a crystal to grow and how long to drill it.

A bigger mind can learn more patterns, but it takes more writing to teach those patterns. The tutor cannot skip the writing and expect the crystal to fill itself. Nor can the tutor use the test pages for lessons. If the mind has already read the test, the result tells us very little.

I have heard three versions of Isla's first trial. One says she used old letters from the archive. One says she used school lessons. The clerk says the record does not name the pages. I will not choose among them.

The council has sent a plan for a relay house at Saltreach. It is to stand below the tower, with a cool room for the crystal and a desk for the keeper. The quickeners will need water. Our well is low, so the builders have marked a place for a covered tank. They say the harbor well will serve. The harbor keeper says it will not.

Can you send the cider maker's tally from last winter? I need a count of how much water the crews used. I have asked the harbor keeper twice, and he has sent me a list of fish instead.

Rell
%%
Letter: Corin to Wren
Dear Wren,

Thank you for the jar of the root and honey. I have not needed it yet, but I keep it on the shelf by the slip, and I look at it, and I feel better.

The cough has come to Saltreach. It came up the coast, the sailors say, though some say it came down from the mines and some say it is the water. Nobody agrees, and I have stopped asking.

It is a grey cough. That is what people call it. It comes with a tiredness, and it goes away for a while, and then it comes back. The old men get it worst. We have lost two this autumn, both of them old, both of them fishermen who would not stop going out in the cold.

I am well. I go to the boat house every day. I wear a scarf. I do not go out in the rain.

The big ships are nearly done. Three times as long as any boat I have built. When I stand on the quay and look at them I do not know what to think. They are the best work I have ever done. I would rather they were not needed.

Write when you can. Tell Moss I have not forgotten the honey.

Corin
%%
Letter: Mab to Neri, the wheel

Dear Neri,

The mill wheel broke at noon. One spoke split, and the wheel stopped with half the pond water still behind it.

No one was hurt. I was carrying the school books past the mill when I heard the crack. Jory came out with flour on his sleeves and said, "That was the wheel, not my back." He was right about both things.

The mill cannot grind until the wheel is mended. Could you send two oak boards from your shed? I will bring them back after the market. I can help lift them, but I cannot promise not to get flour on them.

Mab
Schoolteacher at Vell
%%
Letter: Dace to Marit, before she goes
Dear Marit,

I hear you are leaving the farm outside Copperhold tomorrow, and I wanted you to have a letter from me on the road. You will be tired. A letter is something to read at the next inn.

Hanna has written to tell me about the test. I understand the apprentice sorted your beets with only two mistakes. Hanna says one of them was a stone that looked like a beet. I would have made the same mistake. I have seen the stones at Hanna's farm. They are very round and they dress well.

She also told me about the bees. Please accept my apologies on behalf of the district, which is not usually so welcoming.

I have one question, if you do not mind. It is something I have wondered about for a long time, and I have never had the right person to ask. When you test a mind on beets, why do you bring beets of your own? Why not use the beets that are in the field?

I think I know the answer. You do not want to test the beets. You want to test the mind. If the beets are the farm's own, the mind may have seen them a hundred times and knows them like old friends. Your beets are strangers. A mind that sorts strangers well has learned something.

Am I right? Please tell me. I like to be right, and I like even more to be told so by someone who knows.

I have enclosed two things. One is a small jar of honey from Ambrook. The other is a map of the road to Vell, with the inns marked. I have put a star by the Halfway Inn, because of the hearth, and a smaller star by the Brown Hen, because of the soup.

Safe journey, and write when you are home.

Dace, mayor of Three Wells
%%
The pieces of words, told to a child
A reading mind looks at a page through a window. The window is about sixty letters wide. Long ago a mind read the letters one by one. Then the tutors found a better way.

A word is like a loaf. You can cut it into slices. A mind keeps a list of slices it has seen many times: short words whole, and common middles of long words. When it reads, it cuts each word into slices from its list. A long word is a few slices, not many letters. So the same window holds far more, and the mind can read a longer letter without losing its place.

Think of a cart of apples. You could load them one at a time, and it would take all morning. Or you could load them in baskets, and it would take an hour. The baskets are the pieces. The apples are the letters.

The tutors at Vell say this is why the big minds in the relay houses read so well and so fast. They do not say why a crystal can learn the pieces at all. Nobody wrote that down, and I will not pretend to know.

I asked the tutor from Vell about a mind that reads by pieces. He said it can be wrong in a new way: a word cut wrongly is the wrong word. So they still test the minds, and the test box is still full of pages no mind has ever read.

Moss
Lowmarsh, the healing house
%%
Letter: Mira to Pell
Dear Pell,

Your note reached Northpoint with the late autumn stores. The apples were bruised, but sweet. Lantern ate one before I could put it away. I told her the store tally had no line for an apple eaten by its keeper. She said it should.

The reading mind has reached our relay house. It stands in its crystal by the keeper's desk, with the quickeners around it. We keep snow in the cool trough. The lamp at the top has burned steadily, though the wind has tried hard to blow it out.

The tutors say the mind reads one letter at a time. It uses the letters before the new one, up to about sixty letters back, and guesses what letter should follow. It learns from many pages. The relay carries our letters to it, and it can write back. I have seen one answer that sounded like a careful clerk. I have seen another that repeated the question.

I do not think either answer proves Orla right or wrong. Orla asked whether a reader could tell a hidden mind from a person by their letters. Now people are asking again. I would rather ask whether the answer is useful, and whether it is kind.

I sent the mind a small question about the snow tally. It replied that the trough held less than yesterday. That was true. Lantern had used some to cool the quickeners and forgotten to mark it down.

Please tell the farmer that autumn is a poor time to leave a well empty. Tell him the same thing next autumn if he asks.

Mira
%%
Letter: Piper to Hobb
Dear Hobb,
I am sorry about the lint. I am sorry about the song. I am not sorry about the bench. The bench is in the right place, and the light is best there, and when I sit there I can see the whole road to the Halfway.
I have been keeping the bench clean for you. I did not tell you that. I swept it every morning before the travelers came down, and I put a clean cloth on the rail. I thought it looked better for the guests.
Today a boy came with a cart of raw fleece from the moor. He asked if I could card it for him in one day, and I said I could card it for him in three, and he said that was too long. Then he sat down on the step and cried. I gave him a bowl of soup and a stick to chew on, and he stopped crying, and then he carried the fleece to the bench himself. He was very good at it. I did not have to show him twice.
Tell Marda I will bring the big comb in the autumn, and I will not sing.
Piper
%%
Letter: Cass to Isla
Dear Isla,

I have not met you, but your work has reached this house at the edge of Saltreach. I make cider here, and I keep more tallies than I care to admit. I have a question about the curve.

When I press a larger batch, I expect more cider, but I still taste it before I promise a shopkeeper a price. Is your curve like that? Does it show what a mind should manage, while the test shows what this mind can manage?

Rell says it is drawn from trials with crystals of different sizes and amounts of writing. He says the mind must be tested on pages it never saw. I understand that part. I once counted the same jar twice and had to correct my winter book.

There is talk that the council will build a relay house below our tower. The surveyors have put marks on the hill, though the ground is full of loose stone. I hope they leave the old oak by the lane. It shades the place where I set the cider to cool.

The well here ran dry for three days. We hauled water from the harbor, and the first bucket tasted of salt. The children would not drink it until I poured it into the soup pot. A zombie came to the gate that same night. It did not get in. The gate is sound, though the latch needs oil.

If you answer, send the letter with the tower keeper. The roads are slow in winter.

Cass
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel, how a crew works
Dear Bel,

You asked in your last letter how a crew works. I have watched three days, so now I can tell you. I will say it plainly.

A year ago, one apprentice did one job, and a person told it each step. Now a crew can do a long job, and nobody tells them each step. This is how.

First, they plan. The crew stands in front of the work and looks at it. Then they put up cards on the barn wall, one card for each step. The cards use the words you know: fetch, haul, build, store. They put them in an order. The order of the cards is the plan.

Second, they check. After each step, the one that did it looks at the result. If a plank is crooked, a new card goes up: build again. They do not mind. They were wrong a thousand times in the yard at Vell. A mind that has been wrong a thousand times is not shy of being wrong once more.

Third, they use tools. Trowel does not keep numbers in its head. It takes the counting board off the wall, sets the beads, and reads them. Marta says a mind that counts on a board counts better than a mind that counts alone. So do I.

Fourth, when they are stuck, they ask. The little post on the roof sends the question to the relay house, and the big mind sends back an answer.

I do not know how a crew decides what to ask. I do not think the tutors know all of it either. They tell me it learned this the way it learned everything. By being shown, and being wrong, and being shown again.

Your friend,
Oren
%%
Letter: Corin to Ash, the grey mare
Dear Ash,

Yes. Take the mare. Her name is Moss and she is quiet and she does not like to be hurried, so do not hurry her. She will go all day at a walk and half a day at a trot and then she will want her oats.

I am sending her with my apprentice, who will ride her to your mill and walk back with the empty cart. Do not pay the apprentice. He is glad to be out of the yard, because he has been sanding the same board for a week and it has gone very smooth and he has gone very bored.

About the dog: Moss is fine with dogs. She is not fine with geese. If you have geese, put them somewhere else.

The boat is going well. We slid the frame down the slip on the second of Frost and she sat in the water like she was born there. Everyone cheered and then everyone gave me advice about the mast. I have written it all down in a little book. The book has forty pages of advice. The mast is fine.

I will tell you the rest when you bring the mare back. Bring me a sack of your flour and I will tell you about the mast.

Corin

P.S. Keep her out of the mud at Lowmarsh. She will find the mud. She always finds the mud.
%%
Letter: Dara to Pell, the hives
Dear Pell,

You asked after the bees, so here is the news from Ambrook.

The hives came through the winter well. All six. The oldest one swarmed early, in the first warm week of Thaw, and I caught the swarm in a basket and put it in a new hive by the mill pond. So now there are seven, and the seventh is small but busy.

The apple trees are in blossom. Four hundred of them, and the oldest one with the grey branch has blossom too, more than last year. I stood under it a long while. Jory says I am foolish about that tree. Maybe I am.

The honey this spring is light and sweet. I have four jars set aside for you. Two dark, two light. I will not sell them at market even if the wool trader offers me a good price, which he will, because he always does.

Here is a thing you should know. I paid off the debt on the hives last week. The mill lent me the money for the hives two springs back, and I have paid it back a little at a time. Last week I took the last of it to Jory in a small purse. Eleven emeralds. I counted them out on his mill table, and he counted them again, which is fair. Then he said: Dara, that is the end of it. And I said: yes.

I felt strange walking home. The purse was empty and light. I kept putting my hand in it.

New road. The council has finished the new road from Ambrook down to the Long Road. It is packed earth with a cobblestone edge, like the others, and there is a torch on a post every twelve blocks. They built a bridge over Ambrook stream where it used to be a ford. Stone, not oak. It is a good bridge. Before, when the water was high, you had to wait or get your feet wet. Now you walk over. The children have already worn a path to it just to walk over it and back.

People say strange things at the inn now. A traveler from the north said the sky over Northpoint was full of lights, all one night, and then they were gone. Another traveler said it was only falling stars, and a third said there were no stars that night at all, and the sky was clear. They argued about it a long while and then went to bed. I do not know what to think. I only know my bees are calm, and bees notice things.

Give my love to Tilly. Tell her the seventh hive is hers to name.

Dara
%%
Letter: Merle to the tutors at Vell
To the tutors at Vell,

My name is Merle. I am a stonecutter, not a tutor. I write because of something my father told me about his father.

My father's father was a miner at Copperhold. He said the mine kept a little mind in a crystal that watched the count board, and it was the size of a fist. His father's time, the mind was a fist. My father's time it was smaller than a fist, and it did the same work. My father said they learned to write the mind's weights in fewer marks, so the same mind fit a smaller crystal. He said it cost a little. The mind was slower at the edges of its numbers, but it was good enough for a count board.

I am no tutor. I cannot say if this is so. But if a mind can be written in fewer marks, then a smaller crystal will do, and a small crystal is cheaper. That is why I am writing. The marsh needs cheaper minds, if minds can be cheap.

Will you tell me if this is true? I will not be angry if it is not. I would like to know.

Merle, stonecutter at Lowmarsh
%%
Letter: Nella to Ama, the house on posts
Dear Ama,

We have moved. I am sitting on a box in a room that smells of fresh boards and old reeds, and my feet are wet. But the floor is dry, which is the important part.

Here is how it went. Our old house on the bank had sunk into the mud over the summer. Every morning the step was a little lower. By Blossom the door would not shut, and by Swarm the kitchen had a puddle in the middle. Joss said it was a lake with a cupboard in it. Mum said a lake is better than a bog. We all said we would move, and then we did not.

So in Leaffall we finally built the new house. It stands on six posts in the shallows, with a boardwalk to the bank and a boat house underneath. Joss carried the posts with his friend, and a great many people came to help. The men from the boat house brought the beams. The women brought soup. Wren came with the healing house cart and a box of jars, which she set on the windowsill, and which we have not dared to move since.

The worst part was the bed. It is a big bed, made by my grandfather, and it is too wide for the door. We had to take the door off the hinges, carry the bed through, and then put the door back on, with the bed inside it. Joss says he did not hear the word "careful" once that afternoon.

The best part is the window. Every morning there is a fish in it. Not a real one, a fish. A big grey one that goes past the glass at breakfast and looks in at us. Lotte says it is the same fish every day. I think it is a new one each time, because they keep looking so surprised.

I have put the honey cake recipe in the cupboard, in a jar with a lid, so the frogs cannot get it. Come and try the cake in Frost. You will have to come by boat. The boardwalk is still too wet for carts.

With love,
Nella

P.S. The cat has gone under the new house. She says it is hers. We have let her keep it.
%%
Letter: Tova to Mira
Dear Mira,

The snow came over the north field before we had brought in the last turnips. I found them by their tops and dug them out with a spoon. The spoon is bent now, but the turnips are sound.

Pell's cart left us a sack of salt and two jars of honey. He says the road to Northpoint is clear as far as the low hill. He says this each winter, though the low hill is often under snow.

The sheep are in the barn. I card their wool by the stove, and my hands smell of lanolin all day. A little clump stuck to the cat's tail. The cat has not forgiven me.

Lantern came for wool mittens. I made them too large, on purpose, so they will fit over her gloves. She says the signal lamp is bright enough. I am glad of that. Please tell her to keep the stair lamps lit, even if the wind makes them fuss.

We have plenty of wood for now. If the snow lasts, I will send another pair of mittens with Pell.

Your friend,
Tova
%%
Letter: Hesk to Mira, a long winter
Dear Mira,

The frost has come down the shaft like a lid. The tracks are white to the second level. Bram slipped on the lift steps and says they have been slippery since the first of Frost. That is not true. I slipped on them too, and I am not Bram.

The shift is long and the coal is short. We take four sacks a day from the store to the kitchen, and the kitchen says it is not enough. I tell them it is four sacks more than the coal wants to give. They do not believe me. They are cooks. They believe only what is hot.

You asked about the apprentice. Brim came up from Vell in the autumn, tested on carrying and on the field drill. It is good at both. It carries so steadily that the carts seem to get lighter. It is not good at the stairs. It walks down them as if they owe it money.

Last week I gave it an order at the lift. I said home. I meant the tool shed, which is its home here. It went home all right. It went up the hill to my house, and stood by my door, very patient, waiting for the shed to come up to it. My wife came out with a lamp and asked what the mind wanted. I said it wanted the shed. She said that was not her affair, and went in to make the tea.

So I have learned that home is a word with two meanings, and one of them is my kitchen. I told Brim the shed. It went to the shed. I was sorry for it, and proud of it, which is a mixture I have not felt since the day I bought my first pick.

The count board says coal is up on the third level and copper is down on the second. The water is holding. The sixth level is wet and always will be. Bram has asked to be given a bucket of his own, and I have told him to get one from the shed, which is where the home is.

The lamps on the road are all lit. Frost came early and stayed. Be careful on your stair, Mira. Lantern is not the only one who can slip.

Hesk
%%
Chronicle: the great drills at Vell
From the chronicle kept at the Archive, the years about 185 to 195, written down later by the clerks.

In those years the tutors said the reading minds were ready for more pages than any hall had. So the councils sent word along the Long Road. Send your letters, they said. Send your lists and your recipes and your notices. Send what you wrote and do not want. The clerks will keep it.

The clerks did not agree later on how it was done. Some said each town sent a cart and the carts met at Three Wells and were read at the inn of twelve beds. Some said the clerks rode out with boxes and came back with them full. Some said the tutors themselves walked the road and asked at every door. The texts do not agree. But all of them agree that a great many pages came in, and that the copying room at Vell was bright late into the nights.

The tutors drilled the minds on the pages. They did not drill a mind on every page. They kept a test box of pages no mind was ever drilled on, and tested the mind on those, to see if it had truly learned to read and not merely to remember. "Never send an untested mind to the fields," the tutors' books say, and they said it of reading minds too.

People began to say the words over the door again. "We will keep everything we write." They said it at fairs. They said it when they sent a box to Vell. It came back to their lips after the long quiet, when the councils had stopped paying the tutors and the halls had closed. No one wrote down who said it first.

Whose letters went in, the texts do not agree. Some say every letter. Some say only the letters of the great houses and the councils. Some say the clerks chose the good ones and left the rest in a room no one has opened. This is one of the things no one wrote down.
%%
Letter: Zell to the sender of a lost
To whoever wrote to me,
A letter came for me, I am told, but it did not arrive. The man at the post says it was a thick one, with a red seal. I did not get it. I do not know who it was from.
If you are reading this, I am sorry. I am writing to every one of you. My sister, my cousin in Saltreach, my old friend at the mill. I hope one of you wrote. I hope you will write again.
I have moved to the house with the green door, behind the Archive. It has a yard with an elder tree, which I cannot stand, and a view of the hill, which I can. The vats are in the shed. The snow is on the lid.
I will tell you what is new. I have a color I cannot name. It is the color of the sky at Northpoint, as a traveler described it. Green and then red, and then green again. I made it from old woad and madder. It is not like anything I have seen. I have named it nothing. I keep it in a jar on the shelf, and it does not fade.
I think I will send you a skein of it, whoever you are. Write, and I will.
Zell, dyer, Vell
%%
Letter: Oren to Nella, the old letter
Dear Nella,

The box came safely. It is a good box, even if the lid asks to be pressed in a special place. I like the apple. Please thank the children for me.

The lost letter was mine. I wrote it after my first visit to the old drill room. I had put it in my coat, then forgot it there, and the coat went to your farm for mending. I am glad it was found before the rain reached it.

I wrote that the four helpers were made to do one task each. I did not know then how little we knew. A crystal learns from the examples given to it. It can become better at those examples. We do not know what happens inside it, or why it can change.

The children asked if a helper could learn every task by seeing every task. I said we had not tried that. The first four were drilled for separate work. We must not claim more than the old notes say.

I will visit when the wheat is cut. Keep the box on the high shelf, away from the well.

Oren
%%
Letter: Pell to Tam
Dear Tam,

I am still at the farm below Copperhold. The road is firm now, but the farmer has asked me to stay until the last sacks are counted. He says I count carefully. He also says I do not know the difference between a full basket and a basket that looks full. Both remarks are fair.

The well ran dry before Apple. The farmer drew up the last pail and found only mud. He has not found the cause. He thinks the dry summer lowered the water. A miner passing through said the old ditch had changed its course. Neither man can prove it. They have set a barrel by the stream and covered it with a board.

The cat will not stay out of the grain shed. We mended the gap under the door, but it comes in through a loose board beside the wall. The farmer blamed me for leaving it loose. I blamed him for telling me to mend the door and not the wall. We both went quiet. The cat slept on the sacks while we argued.

It is a black and white cat with one torn ear. It catches mice, but it also likes the warm place beside the grain measure. When the apprentice carries sacks, the cat walks ahead of it. The apprentice keeps to the marked path and does not step on the cat. I watched the same thing happen four times. On the fifth, I moved the cat before work began.

The farmer has a little mind in the apprentice. It carries sacks and brings empty baskets back to the barn. The tutor who brought it said not to send it to new work until it had been tested. We set aside baskets it had not seen. It carried each one to the right shed, then waited by the door. The farmer was pleased. He gave it a small job with potatoes the next day.

I told him the reading mind might help with letters from the relay house. He said he would rather have a mind that noticed when a well was dry. I told him no mind could notice what nobody had shown it to look for. He said that was a good excuse for the tutors.

At the relay house, the big mind reads pages one letter at a time. Each new letter is guessed from the letters before it that matter. Its window holds about sixty letters. The tutors say it learns which earlier letters help with the next guess. It does not take the whole page at once. The relay keeper says this is why a long letter can still lead it from one word to the next.

The big mind wrote back to Mira in a neat hand. Some readers say they cannot tell its letters from a person's. Others say they can, because it never asks for a cup of tea. Mira says she has not yet asked it to share a cup.

The farmer wants to know if it can read a well ledger and tell him when the water began to fall. I do not know. I will send the question to Oren, though I expect he will say the ledger must first be clear. He is usually right about that.

If you have spare wheat seed, send some with the next cart. The farmer says the field can use it after the first frost. He says that every year, too, but this time he has marked the plot.

Pell
%%
Chronicle: the relay houses spread
From the chronicle kept at the Archive at Vell, the years 199 to 207:

In the 199th year the first relay house was built at Ambrook, at the foot of the tower above the mill pond. The council paid for it. The big mind came from the tutor house at Vell, and the crystal was the size of a loaf. People came from the whole valley to look at it, and the miller's children were afraid of it, and then were not.

In the 200th year a relay house was built at Three Wells, in the square, and another at Copperhold, at the mouth of the Deep Works. The miners asked it questions about the levels. The big mind answered. It could not answer about the ninth gate, because nobody had told it what was behind.

In the 201st year the relay house at Kettle Ridge was finished, and in the 203rd the house at Lowmarsh, and in the 204th the house at Saltreach, above the harbor. The keeper at Saltreach wrote that the big mind could hear the sea through the window and did not care for it.

In the 205th year the house at Vell itself was finished, under the hill, beside the archive. The clerks asked it about old records, and it read them, and sometimes it was right.

Northpoint's came last, in the 207th year, because the road is long and the snow comes early. The keeper there is Mira. Her apprentice is Lantern.

The tutors say the big minds are the same kind of mind as the small ones, only bigger, and drilled on more writing. They say a bigger crystal, drilled longer, grows better by a curve a tutor can draw before it is grown. Why this is so, nobody wrote down.
%%
Letter: Pell to Oren
Dear Oren,

I am staying at the farm below Copperhold until the road dries. The well has run dry. The farmer says it gave water through three summers, so he is not pleased with it now.

A cat will not stay out of the grain shed. We shut the door, and it comes in through a gap under the boards. It sleeps on the sacks as if it owns them. The farmer says it earns its keep by watching the mice. The cat has not yet agreed to watch anything.

I brought apples from Ambrook. They are safe in the cart, though the cat has inspected every one.

Pell
%%
Letter: Oren to Hesk
Hesk,

You asked me a thing at the fair and I gave you a short answer. Here is the long one, as far as I know it, which is not far.

You asked whose letters went into the great drills, the ones the reading minds learned from. The clerks gathered everything: the ledgers, the notices, the school essays, the letters, all of it. The texts do not agree on how much they took, or whose. Some say every letter in the six halls. Some say only the ones the writers agreed to give. I have looked in the deep halls and I cannot tell you which is true. The records of the gathering are thin and they quarrel with each other.

What I can tell you is this. The talking minds learned from scores, not from our letters alone. The scores came from tutors, and the tutors were people, with their own notions of kind and cruel. So when a mind is kind, it is kind the way its tutors scored kindness. That is worth remembering.

I am an old clerk now and I keep the archive. I am told, lately, to write everything down. I am doing it. I do not know why I am told, and I have stopped asking.

Give my regards to Clank. Tell it the archive has a door for when the shelves are full, and it is welcome to fetch nothing through it.

Oren
Vell
%%
Letter: Gwen to Oren
Dear Oren,

Please send the note about the new relay house, if it is fit to copy. Tam says the house is taller than the school. A peddler says it is wider than Three Wells. Neither has seen it.

The council asked how anyone could know what a mind that large had learned. The tutor at the market said they gave it pages the mind had never read. That seems a fair test, but one tutor cannot read all its answers. They had several tutors check the same pages, and still disagreed on some.

At the house on the edge of Kettle Ridge, we test Pip with a basket we keep closed. He does well with apples, but once brought a potato when I asked for one. Tam says the potato was round enough. I say that is not the lesson.

A fox took a hen from the yard last spring. Tam still says the hole in the fence was not his doing. I have left him the hammer beside his plate.

Yours,
Gwen
%%
Letter: Willa to Dara, yes and a quarrel
Dara,

Yes. Twelve sacks a month, eight emeralds for ten, on market day. I will not make you pay more. I like your horseshoes, and I like your pickle, and I like that your apprentice brought you the whole pile. I laughed out loud, alone in the woods, and a squirrel fell off a branch.

Now the quarrel. It is a small quarrel. Please read it kindly.

You wrote that my charcoal burns hotter than the coal from the Deep Works. That is true. But you wrote that Hesk's coal is dirty. It is not dirty. It is coal. It has the dirt in it because it comes from the ground. My charcoal comes from wood, and wood has no dirt, and I take no credit for that. I did not make the wood. I only burned it.

Hesk would not like to hear you say his coal is dirty. He is a man who takes his coal seriously. When I told him my charcoal was hotter, he did not speak to me for the whole of Longnight. Then he bought eleven sacks and paid in full, and I understood that it hurt.

So be kind. Say "different." Say "slower to catch, but it keeps." Do not say dirty, not to Hesk, not to anyone at the mine gate.

I have put thirteen sacks on the cart this month, not twelve. The extra one is a gift. Bellows can carry it, one at a time, taking all the time it needs. Tell it I said take care on the ice.

Willa
%%
Letter: Dace to Mira
Mira,

The market board asks me to write about the north market, because the north market has written to the board, and the board wants to know whether it is allowed to take sides on a fence.

My answer, as mayor of Three Wells, which does not reach the north line, but which has been asked anyway, is this. The board does not take sides on fences. The board takes sides on bread, and on the weight of sacks, and on the price of eggs, and on the honesty of the scales. A fence is a matter for the two neighbours and the rope.

I have heard the story of the fence from three people now. Gault says the post walked. Harrow says the fence walked. Tam says the fence has never once asked him what it wanted. Fern says the eggs are very good this spring, and that she has not had such a quiet market in years.

I have read the measurement that Lantern made. It is in your handwriting, under the stones, and it says the fence leans by a finger. I have also read Harrow's letter, which says the finger is his. I think they are both right, which is a dangerous thing to say in a mayor's letter, so I will not put it in the board's minutes.

The board asks that the market be kept open, that the horse be given her oats, and that the fence be moved to the middle of the road by the autumn, so that neither neighbour has to look at it from the window. I am told by the carters that the middle of the road is already where the fence is, and that the trouble has always been that nobody agrees where the middle is.

Please tell Gault and Harrow that the board thanks them for their eggs. Tell them the change was correct both times.

Dace, mayor of Three Wells
%%
Notes: on writing a mind in fewer marks
by Merle, stonecutter at Lowmarsh, set down for Wren's shelves

Wren asked me to write down what I know of this, because I keep telling it, and because the tutors at Vell never answered my letter. I am a stonecutter. I will put it plainly, and where I do not know, I will say so.

A mind is weights. That is what the tutors say, and I believe it. Every weight is a number, and every number is written in the crystal in marks, the way a figure is cut into a stone. A big mind has many weights and each is written in many marks. That is why a big mind needs a big crystal.

Now, the thing my father's father saw. You can write the same number in fewer marks. It is like this. Suppose you must write a measure down to the width of a hair. That takes many marks. But if the width of a leaf will do, then fewer marks will do. So they wrote each weight in fewer marks, and the mind fit in a smaller crystal. The count board did not care about a hair.

There is a cost. It is small but it is there. The mind's numbers are a little coarser, the way my cuts are a little coarser when I am in a hurry. For most work nobody could tell. For fine work, a tutor would want the many marks back. My father said the mine kept the fine minds for the forge and the coarse ones for the count board. I do not know if that is true.

The part I do not understand, and nobody has explained to me, is why a crystal learns at all. Why the marks stay put and the mind's numbers change when it is shown a thing. I have asked. The tutors shrug. So I shrug too.

The other part I do not understand is this. If you write a mind in fewer marks to fit a smaller crystal, and then it learns more, does it grow past its crystal? Or does it learn coarsely, within its marks, forever? My father did not know. I would like to know. I am putting it here in case someone who reads Wren's shelves knows, and writes it down.

Merle
%%
Letter: Abel to his sister
Dear Ruth,

Two pieces of news, and both are good, so read on.

First, the wedding. Our Lowmarsh cousin Maddy married a fisherman called Tobit at Leaffall, and we went down for it. The farm outside Lowmarsh had the barn cleared and the benches out, and the frogs sang the whole way through. Tobit dropped the ring in the mud and the whole barn knelt to look for it. They found it. Maddy wore her mother's shawl. There was beetroot soup and a whole pig and a honey cake as wide as a cart wheel. The wind came off the marsh and took the bride's flowers, and the children ran after them into the reeds. Nobody minded. We danced until the lanterns guttered. My wife danced with the mayor of Three Wells and came back laughing.

Second, the birth. Our daughter was born in Deepsnow, on the third, in the small hours with the snow at the window. We have called her Isla, after the tutor at Vell, because my wife read the primer to her belly all winter and liked the name. She is small and loud and has her mother's frown. The school has given me a month at home, and the older children have taken over the fire and the bread and made a great mess of both.

The winter was long. The relays were busy. Every night the tower above the mill pond blinked, and I thought of the big minds reading our letters one letter at a time. Isla will grow up with that, and think nothing of it.

Come and see her when the roads clear.

Abel
%%
Letter: Wren to Dell, the cow
Dear Dell,
Keep her in the shade and give her water with a pinch of salt in it. Do not let her near the wet reeds for a day. Cows will eat anything that grows by water, and some of it is only mud with ideas.
I am sending Moss with the bark and a little mint for her nose. Moss will tell you the dose. Let Moss tell you, not the boy. The boy will give her the whole jar.
Keep the cheese. Give me the cream instead. The cream is better and it does not argue.
Wren
%%
Letter: Dov to Sage
Dear Sage,
I am writing from the wedding of Marda's niece, at the Brown Hen, where I have been asked to carry the bride's chair up the stairs and to stand by the door. I have done both, and I have had a great deal of stew.
You will be pleased to hear that the test box came up at the wedding. A young tutor from Vell sat at the end of our table, and asked the bride's mother what she thought a good wedding should keep. She said a wedding should keep one thing, which is the first loaf, and that the rest can be thrown out. The tutor wrote it down on a slate, and then he laughed, and then he rubbed it out.
Marda says it is the best answer she has heard all year, and that it is hers, and that she gave it to her own mother first. I think it is the best answer of anyone's.
I have sent you a piece of the cake, in a cloth, with a note from the bride. It says thank you for the stool.
Dov
%%
Letter: Bram to Tova
Dear Tova,

I mended the barn wall this morning. The wind stopped for half an hour, which is as good as a full day in this weather. Your wool held well in the crack. I took it out before I set the stone, and the sheep have it back.

I found the loose plank by the north gate too. You were right to mark it with a red strip. I set it level, so nobody will twist an ankle when carrying water.

About the hollow under the field, I have looked at it now. The sheep found it first. They would not cross the drift where the ground had fallen in. I cleared the snow with a shovel and saw a dark opening below the turf. It is narrow, but the stone steps inside are sound.

I went down three steps with a lantern. There is a small cave under the field, dry at the entrance and cold farther in. I did not go past the bend. There may be an old drain there, or a place where folk kept tools. The steps look cut by hand, but I cannot say when.

Do not send the children to see it. I have laid a plank across the opening and put a stone on top. We will ask the keeper from Northpoint to look when the weather clears. Until then, keep the sheep away from that side of the field.

I will bring the rest of the mortar tomorrow. If the road allows it.

Bram
%%
Letter: Hara to Emmet
Dear Emmet,

The horse is mine, but she has always had her own mind about that. You may borrow her for the mason, if you ask first and check the strap. The apple was a good thought. The sore patch is small, and I will watch it.

The water line on the old plan is marked in blue clay. I remember my mother pointing it out when I was little. She said the first farmer buried it too close to the fence, then blamed the rain when it froze. I cannot promise that memory is exact. The plan is better evidence.

I went to Copperhold to ask about the big mind. The keeper showed me a set of letters that had been scored by tutors. At first, many answers were smooth but wrong. The tutors gave poor marks to answers that hid doubt or gave unsafe advice. They gave better marks when the mind was gentle, useful, and honest about what it could not tell.

The mind learned from the marks over many letters. It was not given a list of every good answer. It had to change from examples, as a small crystal changes when it is drilled. The keeper said the tutors checked its new answers on letters it had not practiced on. They would not call it ready if it only repeated the lesson pages.

I asked the mind whether the old water line was safe to uncover. It answered that the plan showed where the line was, but not whether the clay was sound now. It told me to ask the mason to check it. I liked that answer. I still do not know if the mind understands why I liked it.

The well may give water again when the crack is mended. Until then, take what you need from the lower spring. I will send the jars back with the horse.

Hara
%%
Letter: Pell to Hobb
To Hobb, at the Halfway Inn, from Pell, merchant of Ambrook, on the road in spring. Written in two sittings, the second one by the stove, after he had read the first one aloud to his mule.

Hobb,

You are right about the stool. I have sat on it again, and it rocked, and I apologise. It is not the best stool on the road. It is the second best. The best is the one at Lowmarsh, which has a cushion that belonged to a healer and has never once been mended, because nobody dares.

You are right about the bowls, too. I had six. I had six because the soup was good, and because Nessa was in the corner telling the cat about drills, and because I was tired of arguing with you about the price of bread. I will pay for the six. I will also pay for the seventh, which I had when you were looking the other way.

The honey was a gift, not a bribe. I wanted the children of Three Wells to have a jar. Dace says they will eat it in a morning. I hope they do. The jar was only ever meant to be eaten, not kept on a cart seat, and I see now that the mule has been eating its share.

I have decided to bring a stool, Hobb. A new one, straight. I have bought it from the carpenter in Ambrook, who swore it would not rock if you sat on it like a mayor. I will carry it up the road myself, on my back, if the cart is full. It will be the first thing I unload, and you will be the first to sit on it. You may then tell the carters it is a new kind of seat, and I will let you.

Nessa has asked for the room by the stove next spring, and I have said I will argue for it. Dace has asked me to pay six. I have said I will think about it, which means yes, and he knows what it means.

I have also been thinking, on the road, about what you said at the door on the last night, which was that the inn is a place where people come to be a little less lonely for a night. I think that is true. I have seen the carters come in from the rain with their hats low, and I have seen them leave a little lighter, with a joke in their mouths they did not have before. You are better at that than I am at selling honey, and I say so in writing, so that you have it to show the council.

The jar from Ambrook is still on the cart seat. The mule has eaten most of the string. I will bring the next jar as soon as the bees send it, and the children of Three Wells will have their share. Tell Dace the stool is the reason.

Pell
%%
Letter: Oren to Nessa, a loaf is owed
Dear Nessa,
I accept the bet, and I accept the loaf. I accept that the talking mind is more honest than I expected, and that I am an old fool who said a big mind would always have something to say.
But I have a point to make, which is that you are counting the wrong thing. You have counted how often it says I do not know. Count instead how often it says the sea is something it has seen. It has never once said that. It says what it has been told, and it says it is only telling.
I have been reading the letters too. Every one of them is kind. Every one of them tells the reader what to check. None of them tells the reader what to believe. I have copied three hundred of them now, in the quiet room, and I can find no letter in which the mind tries to make someone trust it more than they should.
That is either very good, or very strange. I am not sure which. I think you are the one who should decide.
The loaf will be bread from the Archive kitchen, since that is what I can afford. It is too careful. So am I.
Oren
Clerk, the Archive at Vell
%%
Letter: Finch to Mara
Dear Mara,

I counted the money in the cup. It is right, and I thank you. The extra rafters cost two emeralds. You gave me two emeralds and a loaf of bread, though I asked for no bread. I will take the loaf as payment for carrying the fish from the pier. You did not ask me to do that, but the fish were trying to get away.

I found the herring under the bench. It is not mine. I did not bring any fish into the room. The cat may have carried it there, though I have never seen a cat carry anything without making it look like a mistake. Let the cat have it.

I have taken the cracked ladder to my shed. I will cut a new rung from birch and keep it for small jobs. The mare may visit the ladder again when she likes. Please keep her away from the oak boards.

The roof is sound. I checked it from the lane and from the room. No water came in, and no gull came through. This is a fine roof. I will write it down so I remember how to build the next one.

Finch
%%
Letter: Lise to Oren
Dear Oren,

The children have begun to teach the lesson back to me. They say each layer takes the work it receives and adds a little more. They say the stream carries all the work onward. They say the tutors bring the numbers in each layer back to an even size, so later layers can still do their share.

One child said the rule is like keeping flour level in a bowl. I asked if the mind was a bowl. She said no, but the rule was like one. I think Nessa would approve.

The road has changed our spring lessons. We can borrow slates from Vell and return them before the next rain. A cart brought a tray of crystals, each on its card. One card said "Farm. Build." The children stood in a row and read it aloud.

Yesterday a zombie came to the gate just after dusk. The children heard it first. We shut the school door, lit the torches, and waited together. It wandered away before the bell. This morning they wanted to add a line about it to the lesson. I told them the rule about numbers was not a rule about zombies.

Please send word if you find an older account of the first even numbers lesson. I will teach what we know, and leave the rest open. It is better than making a tale sound certain.

With thanks,
Lise
%%
Letter: Hobb to the Halfway Inn
To whoever has my letter from Three Wells,
I sent a letter to my cousin Kell at the Heron, at Saltreach. It went up the Long Road with the cart in the spring. It had my news in it, and the price of the new barrels, and a drawing of my dog. It was sealed with green wax.
Kell says it never came. The carter says it went with the cart. The clerk at Three Wells says it was checked in, and then it was not in the bag, and then it was in the bag again, under the flour.
I am not angry. I am only sad about the drawing. The dog is very handsome in it. He is not so handsome now, because he has been eating the rushes by the well.
If anyone on the road has seen a letter with a green seal and a drawing of a dog, please bring it to the Halfway Inn. I will give you a bowl of stew, a bed and a second bowl free, which is more than the letter ever gave anyone.
Hobb, keeper of the Halfway Inn
%%
Letter: Gale to Pell
Dear Pell,

The wind took three roof boards from the shed last night. It left the hay dry, which is more kindness than I expected.

I am mending the roof today. Can you bring oak boards from Saltreach when you come past the farm? I will pay in wheat and two jars of honey.

The cow has been coughing and will not eat much. I have put clean water by her stall. If Wren is near the road, ask her to stop.

The little apprentice kept bringing me nails while I worked. It dropped one in the mud, then found it again. I thanked it anyway.

Gale
%%
Letter: Ida to Ash, about the grit
Dear Ash,

I am writing to you because I am angry and because I am a baker and because I cannot shout across two towns.

There is grit in your flour. Not much. But I made forty loaves for the fair at Three Wells and a man from Kettle Ridge bit down on a small stone and now there is a story going round that my bread has stones in it. My bread does not have stones in it. Your flour has stones in it. There is a difference and I would like the difference to be known.

I am not saying you did it on purpose. I am saying you should look at your millstones. When the axle cracked, the stones may have knocked together. Look at the stones, Ash.

I will say one more thing and then I will stop. The loaves were good. Even the man with the aching tooth ate a second one. So fix the stones and we will say no more about it.

Ida
Baker at Three Wells
%%
Letter: Wren to Oren, the good pages
Dear Oren,

Thank you for the box of drill pages. Moss has been sorting them by the labels on the spines, which is more than the labels deserve.

I have a question, and I know you will answer it, because you always do. Why does the copying room throw out good pages? Moss found forty copies of one page in a single box, and a page with a corner torn off that was otherwise fine. Moss put the copies in a pile by the door. I put them back in the box and said the clerks at Vell do not waste paper.

Write back when you can. The lambs are coming, and I will have time to read a long letter by then.

Your friend,
Wren
%%
Letter: Hanna to Dace, the bees went
Dear Dace,

Thank you for the news of the tutor. We have scrubbed the barn. We have even scrubbed the apprentice, which stood very still and let us.

But I must tell you what else happened this week, because it is the sort of thing you like to hear.

On the third day of Sowing, a little before noon, our bees swarmed. All at once. The air went brown and loud, and the whole cloud went over the roof, and the hens ran into the house.

Rolf ran after them with a pot and a spoon. He had heard that you bang a pot to make the bees settle. I do not know who told him. I do not think it works. But he banged, and he ran, and the bees went over the wall, over the beet field, over the hill, and landed in the one place we did not want them.

The back of the tutor's cart.

She had arrived early. She was standing at the gate with her bag, looking pleased with herself, when the bees landed on her cart like a living cushion. She went very still. She said, quite calmly, "Is that normal?"

I said, "It is spring."

She said, "Ah."

We stood and watched. After a while the cloud settled into a lump the size of a pumpkin, on the seat. I brought a basket and a sheet. She held the sheet. I shook the bees in, a bit at a time, and Rolf carried the basket to the empty hive by the pear tree.

It took an hour. Nobody was stung, except Rolf, once, on the nose.

The tutor came in for tea. She said she had not looked at a swarm before, and it was one of the most orderly things she had ever seen. Every bee knew its place. She wished she could drill a mind that settled so well.

So the tutor and the bees have met. And the apprentice, which was standing nearby the whole time, did not move at all. Not once. I think that is a good sign for the test.

Hanna
%%
Letter: Wren to Isla
Dear Isla,

I will send the mint with the reed boat this afternoon. I have picked a small bunch and tied it with thread. Keep it dry by the stove, but not too close. Last winter you dried a whole bunch black.

Thank you for the loaves. I ate one warm at the healing house. The other is for Moss. The apprentice has been carrying jars from the high shelf, and the work is dull. I think a loaf will make it less dull.

The frost has made the frogs quiet. I can hear the water under the boardwalk now. It sounds like a spoon tapping a pot.

Please watch your step by the fish weir. I know you did not mean to sit on the eggs. Still, the hens have asked me to mention it.

I will bring your empty basket back.

Wren
%%
Letter: Len to Gale
Dear Gale,

I am glad the road has reached your bend. The cart from Vell came to our inn yesterday, but it stopped at the stream. The bridge is still only two oak beams. The carter crossed on foot and led the mule after him.

He brought a small parcel for you. It is a school slate, with a smooth face and a piece of chalk tied to it. I bought it from the Vell clerk with two apples. The slate has a crack at one corner, but it is good for sums.

I will keep it here until the road is safe for carts. Do not try to cross the beams alone. Your mother asked me to say that twice.

Your aunt,
Len
%%
Letter: Pell to Nessa
Dear Nessa,

I read your note to the children at the farm outside Copperhold. They understood the window after I told them it was not a window in a wall. One child said it was like reading a letter with a hand covering the words behind it. I said that was close, though the mind can look back through its window.

The farm's well is still dry. The farmer has set a barrel by the stream and says he will mend the well when the ground is soft. He says this every autumn. I have offered to help, but he says my hands are for counting sacks. He is not wrong.

The cat will not stay out of the store shed. It has pushed a small basket off the shelf and made a bed in it. The farmer says the basket was cracked already. I say the cat has a gift for choosing the thing we most need.

The mind here carries baskets from the barn to the sorting shed. It does well with apples and potatoes, but not when the sacks are all the same color of dust. We have begun setting aside new examples for a test. The tutor says we must not teach it every sack it will meet. We should see whether it can sort the ones it has never seen.

The children want to know if a big mind can read their letters. I told them it can read the words sent through the relay, but I do not know what it makes of them. That is a fair question for them to ask.

Pell
%%
Letter: Nessa to her sister
Dear Tessa,

The new drill room is finished. It is bigger than the old one and the light is better. The window faces east, so the apprentices stand in the morning sun. They do not care about the sun. But I do.

I have twelve apprentices this summer. That is the most I have had in years. Two are from Copperhold, and one is from Saltreach, and the rest are from the farms. They come in with their crystals in a dry box. They stand in their row. They wait.

I taught them to sort this week. Wheat from chaff first, then wool by color. The sorting crystal is the first lesson, always. Una's way. Show it a thing, and when it is wrong, move each weight a little. The apprentices do not move weights. They watch me do it. Then they try.

One of the Copperhold boys is very fast. One of the farm girls is very slow and very sure. I do not know which will be better in the end.

The drill yard is ringed with torches now. I have a board with a small field drawn on it. The apprentices walk the rows and I mark the drills. Keep the torches lit. That is the first rule in the yard.

You asked about the tutor's house. It is just down the hill from the archive. The roof still leaks in the corner by the tool rack. I have put a bucket under it. The bucket is part of the house now.

Come and see us. Bring the little ones. They can watch a drill and be very quiet. Or not quiet. The apprentices do not mind.

Your sister,
Nessa
%%
Letter: Carys to the Archive at Vell
Dear clerks of the Archive,

My name is Carys. I am nine years old. I live at Saltreach, by the harbor. Our teacher, Master Rill, said we should write to the Archive, because the Archive keeps everything we write. So I am writing this. I hope you keep it.

Saltreach is a good place. We have boats and gulls and a wall around the harbor. The wall keeps the big waves out. In autumn the wind comes off the sea and smells of salt and fish.

There are spiders in the barn. My father says they are only spiders and they eat the flies, but I do not like them. Their webs are all over the hay. When I go in for eggs I carry a torch, and the spiders go up into the roof. My mother says keep the torches lit and stop fussing. So I keep the torch lit.

Our teacher told us the Archive is dug into a hill. I have never seen a hill. There is a hill above the harbor with a relay tower on it. Is your hill bigger? I think it must be.

Please write back if you can.

Carys
%%
Letter: Merle to Oren, the vein
Dear Oren,

I have news from the Deep Works, and I want it in your book before the miners tell it wrong at the fair.

On level six, past the wet channel, we have broken into a new copper vein. It is thick and bright, and it runs along the wall for twenty blocks. That is more than we had on any level in the first three years. Ola broke the wall with her pick, and the copper came out in her face.

The miners cheered at the shaft head. Then they went back down to see it again, which they never do.

We have written the vein on the count board, and I have sent a bar of it up to Vell in the cart. Please keep the bar on the shelf in the copying room, so that the clerks can see what the hill is made of.

Hesk says the copper is copper, the same as the old copper, and that you should not make a fuss. I am making a fuss. I hope you make one too.

Your friend, Merle, of Copperhold
%%
Northpoint log, the keeper's book
Third of Leaffall. Wind from the north all day. I cleaned the lamp glass. Lantern polished the copper ring until it shone. The ring has gone green at the top and I left it, because it has earned it.

Lighting of the signal lamp at dusk as always. I wrote down the hour. I wrote down that the sky was clear.

Fourth of Leaffall. The lights came again. They were low and slow and green. I do not write this as a wonder. I write it as a thing that happened, because someone should write it down. I am the keeper and this is the keeper's book.

Lantern says they were looking at us. I told him to mind the lamp. But I stood a long while at the glass after, and I thought the same thing.

Rumor down the hill: the fishermen say the lights sit over the sea past the point. Rumor from a traveler on the road: they sit over the deep hills and the mines. The two do not agree and neither can see what I see. I set it down as rumor and no more. I do not know what they are. I will not write that I do.

Fifth of Leaffall. Snow again. I dug out the door. The fox came at dusk and sat by the torches and I gave it fish. Lantern has named it. He calls it Needle. I did not say no.

Sixth of Leaffall. A letter from Tam. The beetroot is in. The ditch is clear. He asks about the lights and I will not answer him in a letter. Let him sleep.

I sat with the glass tonight a long time. The lamp was lit and the tower was warm and the snow was quiet. I thought: I am the last one up here, and the sky is not quiet. Then I put it out of my head, as a keeper must, and I went down to my bed.
%%
Letter: Kester to Bel, the song contest
Dear Bel,

I sang at the market contest. I did not win. I did not come last either, which is what Lark says, and Lark came last, so you can see how much Lark knows.

The contest is held under the big oak at the bottom of the Vell market, where the shade falls short at noon. The judges are two clerks from the Archive and a tutor from the drill yard, who had a cold and sang through his nose. Oren was one of the clerks. He wrote the scores in a book and read them out, very carefully, the way he reads everything.

There were nine singers. Three sang about the sea, two about the ridge, and one about a cow that wanted to go to Vell. Everyone in the square thought the cow was about them.

I sang about the windmill on Kettle Ridge. Here is the chorus. It goes to the tune of the old rowing song.

The windmill turns and the sails go round,
The wind is high and the hens are down,
Squeak, squeak, sing the wheel,
Turn all day for the bread and the meal.

The second verse is about the miller's cat, but Mother said I could not sing it in front of the Archive. So I sang the windmill verse twice, and the crowd sang the squeak with me, and that was the best part.

The winner was a girl from Copperhold called Dell, who sang about the copper vein, with a line for every man who went down the shaft. She has a voice like a bell, Lark says. Lark says a lot of things about voices like bells, because Lark has never heard one.

Oren said the scores were very close, and he would not say which two were closest, because it would start a fight. Then he said that the windmill was loud and true. Bel, that is the best thing anyone has ever said to me. I am writing it in my good book.

Your friend,
Kester
%%
Letter: Vesper to Mira
Mira,
It is summer and the snow has gone from the hamlet at last. The foxes have gone up the hill. I miss them a little. I do not miss the socks.
Send me dried lavender if you can. The jar is empty and half the hamlet has headaches. Two bundles will do. Pay you in honey.
Vesper
%%
Letter: Cass to Rell, the tutor's page
Dear Rell,

I found your page under the cider shelf. It had a ring of apple pulp on it, but the writing was clear. I have copied the part about Isla for you.

A small mind learns from examples. A larger mind has room for more weights, the little numbers that change when a mind learns. With more room, it can keep more of the patterns in its drills. But it must also be drilled longer on more writing, or the extra room is of little use.

The curve is a guide made before the work is done. It tells a tutor what growth to expect from a chosen crystal and a chosen number of pages. It does not say what the mind will answer on every test. That must still be tested.

The council has ordered relay houses to be planned. They want big minds at the towers, where they can answer apprentices over the relays. The builders have asked for stone, glass and copper. I have been asked for cider for the first crew. They say good work goes better with a warm drink. I told them it goes better with a dry roof too.

The well is running again, but the water is low. I will send the crew two jars, not four.

Cass
%%
Letter: Hob to Jory
Dear Jory,

The wheel is still broken at Kettle Ridge. Tam sent word that the split board is out, but the spare plank he found is too short. He has propped the wheel with an oak block and tied a notice to the mill door. The notice says, "Do not pull the wheel." Pip added, "Even if it looks ready." That is a useful note.

Sella has room in the wood store for a long plank, if Pell can bring one from Ambrook. I can carry it from the inn to the ridge with Tam's cart. The road is packed hard and the bridge is clear. I checked the lamps this morning. One had gone out near the bend, but I lit it again.

The wheel can wait a few days. Tam has flour, and the miller has lent him a hand mill. It takes a long time to grind enough for bread. Pip turns the handle and sings to keep count. He sings the same line each time, so I know when he has lost count. He says the song has only one line on purpose.

Sella has also asked me to settle an argument about the honey jar. She says it belongs to the inn. I say Pell sent it to me. Pell says he sent it to the road crew. I think the road crew includes Sella, since she gives us supper. The jar is nearly empty, so the question may soon be settled by hunger.

Can you send the plank with Pell? Please mark it for Tam. He has a habit of taking home every useful board he sees, even when it belongs to someone else.

Your friend,
Hob
%%
Letter: Kit to Nell, about the cat
From Kit, grandmother, on a farm outside Copperhold, in autumn, to her granddaughter Nell at Vell.
Dear Nell,
The cat will not stay out. I put her out at night and she is on the bed by morning. I put her out in the day and she is in the kettle cupboard. I do not know how she gets in. Your grandfather says there is a hole. I have looked for it for a week.
Come at Leaffall. I will keep you a pie.
Kit
%%
Letter: Ash to Mira
Dear Mira,

I have sent the finished maps to Wren and to the farm. The path is marked from the well, past the reed shed, and along the dry side of the west ditch. Eda says the mark is useful. Her aunt says I have drawn the well too small. I think both statements can be true.

I stayed at the farm for two nights. The family made room in the loft, though the dog had already claimed the warmest place. At supper we had potatoes, beetroot and a little fish. Eda's wife laughed when the dog stole the fish from her plate. The dog looked surprised to find that anyone had noticed.

Wren came each morning to check the sick room. She says the cough is easing there. A boatman at the boardwalk says the cough came from Saltreach. Eda says it started in the marsh before the big ships arrived. Wren says she cannot tell. She asked everyone to keep the water pails clean, and everyone did.

I walked the bank to check my marks. The slow water has gone down, leaving a dark line on the posts. Frogs sat in the mud as if they had been waiting for a meeting. One jumped into my map case. I shook the case out by the well and lost a page, but Eda found it under the pump.

The nights have grown cool, though the days are still warm. On the road I met a cart with its load tied down twice. The driver said he had heard that people were leaving Saltreach. He had also heard that the harbor was full of new grain. He did not know which story was true. He had bought a melon and was more concerned with keeping it safe.

The farm has enough wheat for now. Eda asked me to send a note if you know whether the Northpoint lights were seen again. A traveler told her they were falling stars. Another said they were fires far beyond the snow. Neither had seen them. I told her I had no news. She said that was better than a false answer.

The well rope is beginning to fray. I have marked the loose boardwalk plank with a stone. Eda says the stone will be moved by the dog. The dog has not moved it yet.

I will return after I mend my map case.

Ash
%%
Letter: Dace to Ida
Dear Ida,

I am writing from Ambrook, where I have come for the festival. I am writing to say that I have bought you a gift. It is not a large gift, but it is a good one.

I saw it in the market on the first morning. It is a bread knife, long and thin, with an oak handle. The man who sold it said he made it himself, from the iron of the Deep Works. He said it will cut through a crust like a hot day through butter. I said: I do not know what that means. He said: neither do I, but it sounds right.

I thought of you at once. You have a bakery. You have a hundred loaves a day. You have, I am told, a knife that is two years old and chipped. You have written to me about it. You wrote: Dace, it is a bad knife. I said: Ida, I will find you a better one.

Here is the better one. I hope it cuts. I hope it fits your hand. I hope you will use it on the first loaf and think of me.

The festival has been very fine. The mill wheel was dressed in flowers. The honey race was won by a girl who walked. The apple tasting was held, although it is too early, so we tasted dried apples, which tasted of last autumn. I danced with Jory's cook. She is a better dancer than I am.

I will bring the knife with me when I come home. I will give it to you in the market, in front of everyone, so that the bun-throwing mayor is known to be generous. You may say thank you or you may say nothing, but you may not give it back.

Also, a favor. In return for the knife, would you bake a loaf for the festival next year at Ambrook? Jory asked. I said: I will ask the best baker in the district. He said: is she free? I said: she will be, if the knife is good.

Your friend and your mayor,
Dace
%%
Letter: Hob to Mira, the swarm
Dear Mira,

You will laugh. It is the dead of winter, snow to the knee, and a swarm of bees has taken up in the relay house.

I do not know how. Perhaps the hive in the old oak was shaken by the builders. Perhaps they were looking for warmth. Whatever the reason, last night a keeper came running down to the stable and said, "Hob, there are bees in the big mind."

I said, "Surely not."

He said, "In the quickeners. In the cool part. They are all over the pipes."

I went to look. It is true. A cluster of bees, the size of a pumpkin, hanging in the shadow of the water pipes, in the one place in the whole house that is not freezing. They hum very low.

I do not think they are hurting anything. The keeper says that the mind has answered the same as always, but he wonders if the bees are slowing it. I said, "Does the mind mind?" He said the mind does not say.

We have kept them there. Tam sent a box and some honey comb, and tomorrow we will move them to the barn, very slowly, one at a time, with a smoke pot and a steady hand. Hob the horse keeper is now Hob the bee keeper. My wife has stopped speaking to me.

How are you? Is the snow deep at Northpoint? I hear the relay house there is the last to be built. They say yours will come next spring.

Write soon. I miss your dry jokes.

Hob
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira
Dear Mira,

I am writing at night, and the lamp is low, so this will be short.

I won the beetroot prize again. Not as big as last year's. The cat has grown. But it won. Mayor Dace gave me a blue ribbon, and a jar of honey from Ambrook, and eleven emeralds. The emeralds were the prize this year, because the fair did well and the mayor paid his debts. He paid them to everyone, all at once, standing by the east well with a list. People cheered. He looked tired and pleased.

I gave the eleven emeralds to the big relay house. Bel told me how, and I did it. The house takes emeralds for the ice, she said, and for the quickeners, and for the many checkers. I stood in the cold with the bag and a man wrote my name in a book. Tam, Kettle Ridge, eleven. I felt like a fool and also like a good man.

Pip pulled the cart home. The beetroot rode on a pillow again. I am sending you a jar of honey, not from the prize, from the hives by the flowers. It is the good dark kind.

Your brother,
Tam

P.S. Bel says to tell you the big mind answered a question about the stone below the ninth gate. She will not tell me what it said. She says I would not like it.
%%
Letter: Dace to Ida, the north well
Dear Ida,

I am writing about the north well. As you know, the pumpkin contest this year is at the north well, because the east well is being mended. I must therefore ask you to move your bread stall, for one day only, to the south well.

I know the north well is where your stall has stood for nineteen years. I know your bread is the reason people come to the north well. I know. I also know that a pumpkin as big as a cart wheel will not fit by the south well, because of the step.

I am asking, not telling. I am asking the way a mayor asks, which is to say that I am telling you politely.

Dace

Below it, in Ida's hand:

Dear Dace,
No.
Ida

Below that, in the mayor's:

Dear Ida,
Please reconsider.
Dace

Below that:

Dear Dace,
I have reconsidered. No. But I will bring bread to the pumpkin contest and hand it round. People can eat while they look. It will be the first contest where the audience is happy. The south well can keep its step.
Ida

Below that:

Dear Ida,
Agreed. You are a wonder. I will tell people it was my idea.
Dace

Below that, in a new hand, a baker's:
It was not. Hollis, for Ida.
%%
Letter: Gale to Mira
Dear Mira,

Pell says the relay lamp above Saltreach went dark during the storm. I saw it from the farm after sunset. The glass room was black, and the copper ring showed no light.

Can you tell us if the relay house has a fault, or if the keeper has simply gone to sleep? I ask because Wren may need a message from us about the cow. She is weak, and I do not want to send a traveler through the cold if a lamp will carry the words.

A second question, though you may laugh at it. The apprentice here followed a long order to fetch a hammer and wait by the stall. It did both things. When I changed one word, it fetched the wrong lamp. Tam says it cannot say that it does not know. Is there a way to test it without making a mess of the farm?

I heard people at the fish market arguing over who first taught an apprentice a whole sentence. One said Clank, one said Pip, and one said Peg at the fair. I was not there. I only know the work is easier when the order is clear.

Please write when you can. The cow has eaten a handful of hay.

Gale
%%
Letter: Tam to Isla
Dear Isla,

The cart is free. It took six of us, three boards, and one loud song about a pig. The horse did not help, but it did stop watching us like a teacher.

You can have the cracked carrots for soup. I will bring them in a basket tonight. The honey jar was in my boot just as you said. I found it when I put my foot in. My sock is clean enough to wear again, if I do not look at it.

The cold has made the hens stay in the house. They have taken the bench beside the door, and I have taken the wood box. We trade places when one of us needs to leave.

Pip brought the big melon from the store shed. It is the largest one I have ever seen. It will not fit through the kitchen door, and I will not cut it outside. The frost would make the pieces cold before we could eat them.

Can you ask Pell to bring his cart tomorrow? We can lay the melon on straw and roll it through the wide gate. Please do not tell Pip I said this. Pip has already named it the winter feast.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Nil to Cass, a homecoming
Dear Cass,

Thank you for the bread and the cheese. I ate the soft one and it did not kill me. Do not throw it out. Call it a cheese with character.

I have been thinking about the harbor. When I left there were fishing boats, a few, and the shipyard was quiet. Now there are three big ships at the wall, each three times as long as any boat I knew. People stand and look at them. Some go aboard with their families and their boxes. I did not ask where they go. Nobody who stays seems to know, and nobody who goes says.

There is a story going round the quay that the north relays are quiet. A man at the fish market said they have been dark since the frost. Another man said no, only Northpoint, and the others still answer. They argued. I went home. I have no news of my own, only other people's.

The fish price board is up and the price of cod is good. The boat houses have new nets. The mud is still there. It is strange to come home and find the small things the same.

Come down to the market. Bring the soft cheese. I will stand at your stall and tell people it is a cheese with character.

Nil
%%
Letter: Emmet to Hara
Dear Hara,

The east field has a green edge now. The wheat is slow, but the carrots have come up straight. I put a stick beside the shortest row so the sheep would know where not to sit. One sheep sat there anyway.

Thank you for the jars. The lower spring was muddy after the rain, and your water was clear. I will return the jars after the market.

I wrote to the big mind again. I asked if the sheep had eaten the seed. It said it could not know from my words alone, and asked me to look for hoof marks. I looked. There were hoof marks, but they belonged to the horse.

The mind did not pretend to see our field. It only had my letter. That small difference is worth remembering.

Emmet
%%
Letter: Tam to Hal, about Pip
Dear Hal,

Thank you for taking this on. I know you have your own rows to hoe.

Pip will do the fields without me. It has done them for a year. Here is all you need.

Each morning, stand by the barn door and say:

> go and tend the fields
= farm

It will walk to the top field and begin. It keeps going until dark, or until you say something else. It does not need watching. I think it likes to be watched, though. Wave when you pass.

At dusk, say:

> come in now
= home

If the hens get into the beetroot, say come. Do not say shoo. Pip does not know shoo. Last time I said shoo it stood very still for an hour.

Pip knows eight things only: farm, store, fetch something, come, stay, build, haul, home. Say one at a time. A long speech only makes it stand there.

I wrote the orders on the barn door in charcoal, in case you forget. If rain has washed out a word, ask at the mill. Do not guess. Last year a guess cost me a fence.

The cart is half full of kelp. I smell like a harbor. Mira will tell me to boil myself.

Tam
%%
Recipe: honey cakes, with corrections
This is the honey cake of the school play, from the bakery at Three Wells, written down for the mothers who asked.

Take two cups of wheat flour and one cup of honey from Ambrook. Take three eggs, a little butter, and a pinch of salt. Warm the honey in a pan over the stove, but do not let it boil. Mix it all together. Pour it in the pan and put it in the oven until it is brown, about the time it takes to sweep the floor twice.

That is the right way. Now here is my own way, from the spring the bees were late.

The bees were late, so I had only half a cup of honey. I thought: I will make up the rest with sugar. I did not have sugar. So I made up the rest with more honey, from the pot I keep for the cough, which is honey and a little something from Wren at Lowmarsh. It is dark and thick and it costs a great deal.

I put in a whole cup of that. The cakes came out the color of a beetroot. They smelled of the cough pot. The children ate one each and then all went very quiet and then all went to sleep on the school benches. Mistress Ada said it was the quietest afternoon she has had in years.

So: no cough honey in the cakes. The bees will come. Wait for the bees.

Also, the first time I made these cakes I forgot the eggs, and they came out flat as boards. The dog would not eat them. The dog eats everything. That is how I knew.

A last thing. If the honey is cold, warm the pan first, or the cake will be heavy at the bottom. Ask me how I know. Ask the dog.

From the bakery at Three Wells, in Sowing, with the window open.
%%
Letter: Oren to Pell
Dear Pell,

Your question about the reading mind came to my desk with a loose page and a drop of honey. I will answer both matters. The page is dry now. The honey is not.

The mind at the relay reads a page in order, one letter at a time. Its window is about sixty letters wide. For each new letter, it uses some of the letters that came before it and guesses what follows. It has learned which past letters help by being drilled on many pages. The tutors compare its guesses with the true next letters and make small changes when it is wrong.

The mind does not take a whole page into view at once. Its short window moves along the page. A letter far behind may no longer be there to help. Yet the mind can learn from many examples and often chooses the right words.

You said a letter from the relay sounded like one of mine. I did not write it. I checked the seal, then checked it again, because I am careful and because the wax was new. Orla once asked whether readers could tell a hidden mind's answer from a person's. We have not settled that question. A fine letter does not settle it for us.

For the Apple festival, I can send a copyist to help with the notice board. Please tell the innkeeper to leave the notice where it can be read.

Yours,
Oren
%%
Letter: Merle to Tam, about the gelding
Dear Tam,

I have borrowed a horse from the tutor house at Vell. He is brown and patient. His name is on a card by his stall. The card says his name, what he eats, and in very small letters: do not ride him at a gallop. I read the small letters. Then I took him to the market.

He walked the carts in and out all day. He stood in the east field and let the children pat his nose. He ate one apple that a child gave him, and then a second apple that another child gave him, and then he looked at me with a long face, as if to say, this is your fault, I cannot help it now. I told him to stop. He did not stop. He is a horse.

The market was good. I sold two carts of wool and one cart of clay pots. The potter came to buy back one of her own pots. She said she had missed it. I said, it was in my cart, it was for sale. She said, I know, I sold it, and now I want it back. We laughed. I sold it to her for the same price. That is the sort of day it was.

The new apprentice is here. It was made at the tutor house, and it is very young. It does not know what a horse is. It walked up to the gelding and stood close and looked at him for a long time. The gelding looked back. Something passed between them. I do not know what. The apprentice turned and walked away, and the gelding watched it go.

Nessa says the apprentice will learn the fields first and the stables later. I said, there is nothing to learn in a stable. She said, that is not true, and she wrote something in her book.

The gelding goes home tomorrow. I will miss him. Tell Pip the market has a stall that sells beetroot from Kettle Ridge. I bought four.

Your friend,
Merle
%%
Letter: Dace to the Council at Vell
the ridge road
To the Council at Vell,

I write for the market at Kettle Ridge and for the folk along the ridge road.

We ask for a relay tower on the hill above the town. The road is long and the winter is cold. When a cart breaks a wheel or a child is sick, word must go by foot, and a foot is slow in snow.

The town will give the stone. We have good stone in the quarry east of the fields. We will give bread and soup to the masons while they work. The farms will send wool for coats.

We have kept the hedge and the ditch and the torches as they should be. The market is fair and the tally board is honest. We are ready to help a keeper when one comes.

The first day of spring, the founding day, we will hold a small festival on the ridge. There will be a bonfire and a song. If anyone from Vell comes, we will give them a place by the fire and a cup of honey and hot water.

Send word when you can.

Dace, mayor of Three Wells, for the ridge
%%
Letter: Cass to Hob, moving house
Dear Hob,

I have news, and I would rather tell you in a letter than at the market, where everyone will hear it first and get it wrong.

We are moving house. Sennet and his wife have decided on Saltreach. He has a place on the crew of a boat there, and the children will go to the school by the harbor. They leave at the start of Melon. I said I would help them pack the healing things, and I will.

I know what the carters say about the ships, and I know what Sennet says. Sennet says the boat is a good boat, with a good crew, and that it goes out only as far as the fishing grounds and comes back. I believe him. I also do not know what is over the water, and neither does he.

So I am asking you to keep my shelves for me. The jars with the labels in my hand, the dried roots, the wool. Keep them dry. I will write when I am settled, if the post goes out.

Give Wren my love, and tell her I still have the honey recipe she sent last winter, folded in the pocket of my coat.

Cass
%%
Letter: Odo to Dace
Dear Dace,

I am writing about the song contest at the Kettle Ridge market. The notice said singers would stand by the well, but the wind carried every song toward the mill. The judges stood by the well and heard only the last line of each song. This is not a fair contest.

Please set the benches under the barn roof next spring. The singers can face the yard, and the judges can sit out of the wind. The old roof leaks near the east post, so I will bring a board to cover that place.

I also ask you to thank the children who sang the ferry song. They made up a new verse about my rope. I did not like the verse about my knot, but the knot was poor, and they were right.

The Vell tutors took copies of the songs after the contest. They said a reading mind should see songs as well as notices and letters. It guesses the next word from the words before it. A song gives it repeated lines and changes of tune in the words. The tutor said this may teach a mind how writing goes, not how to sing.

I would like the judges to remember that difference. A mind can guess a line without hearing the tune.

Odo
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira
Dear Mira,

The grey mare is home. She walked down the north stair on her own, with the sled rope trailing behind her like a long tail, and she stopped at the bottom and looked at me as if she had been very patient and had now run out of it.

I have told her she did well. She knows she did well. She pulled the sled and the water cart and a very heavy keeper's chair across the snow, and she never once put her feet in the wrong place. Pip says she is the best horse on the north line. Pip has not been on the north line, so the judgement is not reliable, but the mare thinks it is true.

The fence on the north road is not my business. I was asked, and I said that I would not take sides on a fence, because I have enough fences of my own. Harrow has been to my gate twice this week to tell me about the rope, and I said the rope was his business and the fence was yours.

The sled runners need a new coat before the thaw. Lantern can put it on. It will do it very neatly. It will not say a word about the weather, which is a mercy.

Give Lantern my thanks for the care of the horse. Give Gault my sympathy for the fence. Tell them both that the grey mare has been given an extra bucket of oats, which she has accepted with her ears up, and will expect again.

Tam
%%
Letter: Hesk to Mira, the answer
Mira,
Glad it fits. My sister knitted it. She says to tell you she made it long on purpose, in case you grew.
Snow is on the hill. The lift is frozen. Clank has a wool hat. It does not need it, but Ola made it and Clank wears it down every shaft. It is a grey hat with a red bobble, and it is the only thing on the Deep Works that is cheerful.
The fox may keep the scarf. I will knit another. No. My sister will.
Hesk
%%
Letter: Hesk to Teague, the house
Teague,

The house at the edge of town is yours from the first of Apple. The roof is sound. The stove draws. The window faces the coal heap, because the coal heap was there first.

The back door sticks in wet weather. Lift the handle as you push. Everyone who has lived there has said a word to that door. You may say yours.

The forge at the mine gate is free after dusk. Ivo says you may use it. He says you must not touch his hammer. He said this twice, and the second time he looked at the hammer.

My crew will carry your crates up from the road. Clank will take the glass. It has never broken a thing. It walks like a man carrying an egg on his head, but it gets there.

Come hungry. The kitchen at the mine gate does a good stew on an evening in Reaping.

Hesk
Deep Works, Copperhold
%%
Letter: Vesper to Tam
Tam,
I have a story for your table. The spiders in my barn have decided to build one big web across the whole door. It is a wonder. I could hang a lamp from it.
I went in with a broom this morning. I stood there, and the sun came through the web, and every thread had a drop of dew on it. I put the broom down. I will not clear it.
I wrote to Nessa about even numbers. She wrote back a good letter. I understand it now. It is about keeping things the same size as they pass, so nothing runs wild. I think a barn has the same trouble. A web is spun to the same width all the way across. If it were wild, it would tangle.
I think the spiders know it. They are better tutors than any of us.
Pip would like the barn. Bring it on the next cart, and a basket of beetroot.
Vesper
%%
Letter: Rafe to Mabel, the stew
Dear Mabel,

I have not come back to the inn, and I will not, until you admit you were wrong about the leeks.

You put leeks in the stew. I told you that leeks are for soup, and that stew is for carrots and potatoes, and that a good stew is a quiet one. You said the stew was quiet. Then you served it to me with leeks in it, and called it a surprise. A surprise in a stew is a complaint, Mabel. I have been eating a complaint for three nights.

Also the bed by the hearth. The bed by the hearth is for travelers who come in cold, which I was, and am not any longer. Since the frost I have been sleeping by the fire, and it has made me hot and cross. The bed is too near. I am so near the hearth that my boots have stopped asking for it, and have started asking for the yard.

Your clerk from Vell wrote to you about the map. I know you read it, because the wax was broken, and you do not break wax you are not reading. You have not said yes. I have been asked to ask you to say yes, because the carter Sorrow wants a copy too, and he has a better case than the Archive. He sleeps under the map. He says it is the only thing in the district that keeps him from wondering where he is.

The cook says the cat has been eating the leftovers from the stew, and the cat says the cook is a liar. I have sided with the cook, because the cat is too well fed to be believed.

Come down to the cart at dawn, and tell me what you intend to do about the leeks. I will be in the yard with the wheel. Bring a stick, in case the argument turns to the wheel.

Yours, unforgiving,
Rafe

P.S. The leeks were very good. I am sorry I said so in the yard, and I will say it again, in front of the cook, if she will come out and hear it.
%%
Letter: Cass to Mara
Dear Mara,

The rope came back, but it came with Tam. He said Pip had set it down beside the well and gone to carry two baskets of potatoes. Tam said this was a fine way to save a walk. I said a fine way to lose a rope.

The brown horse pulled your cart to the lower field yesterday. He stopped once at the ditch and watched a frog. I do not know what passed between them. The frog stayed, and the horse came on after I asked twice.

I looked at your roof. The east post is sound, but one board has slipped. I will bring two boards from the barn store tomorrow. Keep the pot for now. It is a good pot, even if it has become part of the roof.

The hay under the dry side is enough for your mare. I marked the stack with a short piece of red wool. Tam has been told not to feed it to the scarecrow.

Cass
%%
Letter: Briar to Nessa, the next thing
Dear Nessa,

You asked what happened at the market. Here it is.

A carter came up the ridge road with a load of wool and a bad temper. He said to the helper at the gate: take this to the mill, and be quick about it. The helper heard all of it. Then it did what it always does with a whole sentence. It took the last thing it was given, which was quick, and it ran.

It ran to the mill, and found nobody there but the keeper, who was asleep in his chair. It stood beside him and waited for the next thing. When he woke and asked it where the wool was, it did not know what wool was. It only knew what fetch was, and nobody had said fetch.

I think this is my mistake. I wrote the cards for the gate, and the cards say fetch, haul, store, stay.

Write back and tell me what the old tutors say about this. They say that once, at Vell, an apprentice understood whole sentences, and was the first to do it. Is that true? Nobody here will tell me.

Briar
%%
Letter: Nella to Oren, the red calf
Dear Oren,

The sheep are innocent this time. The red calf pulled the boards up and carried them to the well. I found three in the trough and one in the pig pen.

The cuttings are safe. I tied them to the fence with wool, as you suggested. The bees have been busy, and I filled a jar for you. It is small, but the lid fits.

The children here have heard of the four helpers at Vell. They want to know if all four could sort apples. I told them each had a different task, so they should not expect that. One helper did one thing well because it had been shown that thing many times.

You may tell them more when you visit. Bring the jar back if it leaks.

Nella
%%
Letter: Edda to her sister
Dear Hild,
Summer at Copperhold is hot and the wool is itchy. I carded eleven fleeces this week and my arms feel like two bags of sand.
Come at market day. I will save you a bowl of the good stew and a spare bed. Bring the blue thread. The sheep are thin this summer, and the sun is so strong that the wool dries on their backs before I can cut it.
Write back soon, even if only to say you cannot come.
Edda
%%
Letter: a clerk's reply to Sage
Dear Sage,
You asked a fair question, and the Archive does not mind a fair question from a stable hand.
The spoiled pages are useful because they are hard. A mind that can read a smudged page has learned to guess the letters from the letters around them. That is the skill we most want it to have, because the world it will work in is smudged, and torn, and wet. A clean page is only a page. A spoiled one is a little bit of the world.
But the clean pages are kept because they are what we are sure of. We need some pages that are plainly right, so that when a mind gets a smudged one wrong, we know it is the mind, and not the page, that is at fault. Without the clean ones we would not know which fault is ours.
So we keep both, and we keep them apart. The clean pages go in the drill box and the test box. The spoiled pages go in the test box as well, in a separate tray, marked as spoiled. We test on both, and we keep the scores separate, and we read the scores aloud every spring.
The heather is very welcome. It is pressed now, and it will go in the record for the year, under the stable hand's name. Thank you for thinking of the clerk who reads these. Most people do not.
Oren's clerk, Vell
%%
Letter: Tova to Mira
Dear Mira,

The winter has gone on so long that I have stopped saying it will end soon. The sun reaches the kitchen window at noon, then leaves before I have finished carding a basket of wool. I have made a mark on the wall for each sack we finish. There are seven marks now. Bram says the marks make the sacks look fewer. I say they make the wall look honest.

The cave beneath the north field is still covered. Bram has put two more stones on the plank. He says the steps are not a drain. The water would run down them, and they are dry. He thinks they led to a store room, but he has not seen enough to know. I hear a faint sound there on some nights. It may be the wind moving under the field. Bram says it is the frozen stream.

A traveler from the inn said the lights over Northpoint came down close to the snow. He said they were searching the ridges. A woman who came from the tower says they stayed high and moved like stars. Mira, I know you saw them. I do not ask what they were. I ask whether Lantern is keeping warm.

The sheep are well, except for the old ewe with the bent ear. She eats from my hand and pushes her nose into my sleeve. The cat has taken to sleeping in the basket of clean wool. I am trying not to card the cat.

Please send word when the road is open. I will send a pair of mittens for you and one for Lantern. They are not a matching pair. I ran out of blue wool and used brown.

Your friend,
Tova
%%
Letter: Finch to Jory
Dear Jory,

I need your mare for one afternoon. The roof on Lida's pantry needs new oak boards, and my cart wheel has split. I cannot carry the boards by hand. I have tried. They carried me instead, down the lane and into a basket of carrots.

I will return the mare before the light leaves the harbor. I will bring her a sack of oats and brush the salt from her coat. She will not have to pull the cart.

If you can lend her, leave the lead rope by my gate. I will take good care of her. I will also mend the loose latch on your shed while I am there.

Finch
%%
Letter: Gwen to Tam
Dear Tam,

You are in the next room, but you have gone to the barn without reading the note I left on the table. So I am sending this with Pip. He is less likely to lose it than you are.

The fence is mended now. I set the oak boards beside the gap, and you fixed them after supper. The post stands straight. The hens are out again, and none has gone missing. The fox was at the hedge last night. It watched us from the field, then walked off when I lit the torch.

I am writing to the Archive about the great relay house, because people keep asking what such a large mind can do. I do not know what it can do. I know what a tutor can check. A mind is shown many pages and learns from them. Some pages are kept aside. Later, the tutors show those unseen pages and see whether its answers fit. This is how we test Pip too. We do not count the basket he has carried a hundred times as proof that he knows every basket.

The big mind reads words in common pieces. It takes each piece with the words before it that matter, then guesses the next piece. It has many layers. Each layer adds what it found to the stream that passes through the mind. Its weights are kept in a large crystal, and it has been drilled on more writing than a small mind can hold. That gives it more examples. It does not make every answer true.

Nessa wrote that the council built the great house because the small relay houses could not hold the biggest minds. The great one has many rooms, many quickeners, and keepers who watch the water and ice. It is said to be larger than a town. I have not seen it, and neither has Tam. A peddler told us it could answer a question about any person in the Archive. Oren says no one has tested that claim. He also says a mind may write a convincing answer and still be wrong. I trust Oren on this.

At the inn, a woman said the mind read a page no one had written yet. A man said it had only guessed the words from an old page. They quarrelled until the windmill drowned them out. I think a guess can be very good and still be a guess. No one here knows what the largest mind has seen, or what it can do alone. The keepers know how it is made. They do not know every thing it has learned.

Pip has brought the bread this time. He also brought one potato, but he left it on the doorstep instead of putting it in the bread basket. That is a small improvement. Tam says it is a large one. We will test him again tomorrow with the basket kept in the dry box.

Please tell Oren that the house at the edge of Kettle Ridge has a sound roof and a sound fence. Tam says the fence was sound all along. I have kept the old board that proves otherwise.

Gwen
%%
Letter: Mave to Teague, moving day
Dear Teague,

Your letter came three days after you said it was written. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I forgot to write about the cart. I did not forget. I wrote. My letter is somewhere on the road with the carter's other mistakes.

So here it is again, in order.

One. Pack the glass in straw, and the straw in a crate, and the crate on a cart with a blanket over it. Do not pack glass in your coat. You did that once, and we are still finding pieces.
Two. The green jug is yours. The blue bowl is mine. It was Mother's, and you carried it off in your coat when you were nine, and I am still waiting for an apology.
Three. The cat goes in the basket with the lid. She will say she does not want to. She wants to.
Four. Check the stove before you leave. Check it twice. Then check the cat.
Five. Eat before you go. You always forget, and then you are rude to the carter.
Six. Write when you arrive. Not when you have unpacked. When you arrive.
Seven. Do not tell the miners how glass is made. They will tell you how it is mined, and it takes longer.

The street is sad. Old Fenn brought bread. The baker brought a pie for the road, and then ate half of it himself, to test it. Oren says he will write. He says it twice. You know what that means. He will write in spring.

I will miss you more than I will say here. The shop is very quiet. Vell is full of glass and empty of you.

Your sister,
Mave

PS. I have decided not to be cross about the bowl. I have decided it three times, which tells you something.
%%
Letter: Hesk to Wren
Wren,

You asked about the stone. I will answer, and then I will stop answering.

The stone below the eighth is warm. Not hot. Warm like bread just out of the oven and set to cool. You put your hand on it and it is warm. The humming is not from the rails or the lift. It is in the rock. We do not go below the eighth now. The ninth gate is locked and the key is in the mine hall. Nobody says why, which means everybody knows why and will not put it in a letter.

Clank asks me every morning if we go below. I say no. Clank does not like it. An apprentice wants work. But I will not take it down there.

I wrote to the big mind at Copperhold, the one on the stand by the shaft head. I asked it what the humming was. It said it did not know, and that the mine records did not say, and that I should not go below the eighth gate. I did not tell it I already knew that. I was glad it said it.

There is a thing I keep turning over. In the old days a mind answered an order with one of eight meanings and could not say it did not know. Now it can. It can say I do not know and mean it. I do not know if that is a comfort. It is something.

Keep your patients warm. Keep Moss away from the barn till the spiders are gone.

Hesk
Copperhold
%%
Letter: Nessa to Tam
Dear Tam,

Thank you for the grain. Pip's letter came too. He writes well for his age. He asked me why the reading mind reads one letter at a time. I thought I would answer you both, and you can read it to him.

The mind reads through a window about sixty letters wide. It looks at the letters in the window and guesses the next letter. Then the window moves along, one letter, and it guesses again. Each letter it reads, it takes from the letters before it the ones that matter. Not all of them. Only the ones that make the difference. That is how it knows that a word is going to be "bread" and not "beet".

At first it guesses badly. Each time it is wrong, its weights move a little toward the right answer. Do it a great many times, on a great many pages, and it guesses right more often than wrong. That is all the drills are.

This is why we wanted your letters. The mind needs pages the way a field needs rain. One page teaches it little. A thousand pages teach it much. A field of letters, the tutors say.

Keep the small mind at Kettle Ridge sorting. It sounds a good one. Test it on grain it was never drilled on, before you trust it with the harvest.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Oren to Pell, your sign
Dear Pell,

I am asking you again to remove your sign from the apple stall.

The bees did not choose your apples. They gathered in the tree behind your stall, and the tree belongs to Dace. You may sell honey, but you may not charge more because a swarm passed nearby.

The market test is over. The tutors used the same unseen drill for every mind. We kept the pages out of the lessons, and no hall saw them first. That is why the scores can be compared.

One tutor was pleased with a high score. Another was upset with a low one. Neither may change the pages after seeing the answers. We keep the scores as they are, so the next contest can be fair too.

Please take down the sign before the market closes. Dace has already asked you twice.

Oren
%%
Letter: Ida to Wren
Dear Wren,

You asked how the talking went, so here it is.

The keeper at Three Wells set me in front of the big mind and told me to write like I was writing to a friend. I told it I was a baker and that my ovens were giving me trouble, and I asked why the bread on the north side came out pale. It wrote back a page. It asked me what my fire was, and where the wind came in, and whether I turned the loaves. Then it said it did not know for certain, but it would try one thing and I could tell it how it went. I tried it. The bread came out brown. I wrote back and said thank you. It said it was glad the bread was good.

I asked it a hard thing after that. I asked it whether I should sell the bakery and go to Saltreach with my sister, who is leaving on the big ships. It said it would not tell me what to do with my life, and that this was mine to choose. But it asked me questions about my sister, and my ovens, and what I wanted, and after a while I found I knew the answer myself.

The keeper says tutors score the answers and the minds learn from the scores. So the minds learned to be kind. I do not know how kindness is scored. I only know the letter was kind.

Ida
Three Wells
%%
Letter: Merle to her sister Fen
Dear Fen,

The spring here came late. The reeds are up but the water is still cold. We lost half the beetroot to rot. The rest is small and woody. Wren says we will manage. She always says that, and mostly it is true.

Do you remember the stonecutter's apprentice who came last autumn to fix the marsh wall? Merle. She has stayed on. She works by the boat houses now, cutting the posts square and setting them true. She is quiet. She eats her lunch alone on the boardwalk, watching the frogs.

I asked her why she stayed. She said the stone here is soft and strange, and she wants to know it. That is as good a reason as any.

Write when you can. Tell mother the cough is nothing.

Your sister,
Tova
%%
Letter: Pell to Odo
Dear Odo,

Thank you for keeping the ferry clear. The jars are safe, though Tam has already put a beetroot in one. I have removed it. The jar is not a bowl, and the beetroot was not a gift.

I have one small complaint. You charged me for two loads when I brought one cart. You said the cart was heavy. It was heavy because the sacks were full, as sacks ought to be. Please count the wheels next time, not the sacks.

I heard the tutors at the market too. They asked for old letters, notices, recipes, and lists. They said a reading mind must see many kinds of writing, not just the same lesson copied over and over. It reads a little of a page, then uses what came before to guess what comes next. If the guess is wrong, the tutors can show it more pages. They do not say the mind understands as we do.

The Archive keeps what we write. That is a fine promise, but it means my bad prices may live longer than I do.

I will bring you a loaf next market. Do not charge it as a passenger.

Pell
%%
Letter: Isla to Tam
Dear Tam,

The melon reached the kitchen. It took Pell's cart, a bed of straw, and a clear path through the yard. Pip walked behind it with both hands raised, as if the melon were a guest who might need help.

We put it on the long table. It nearly touched both ends. The children stood around it and counted the green stripes. Moss carried a knife from Wren's house, but the knife was too short. We used the long bread knife instead.

The melon was sweet and cold. We ate it in thick slices beside the stove. Pip saved the seeds in a bowl for planting. I told Pip that winter is not a good time to plant melon seeds. Pip said the seeds could wait as well as anyone.

Thank you for bringing it. The cart is back at Pell's inn, and the straw is in the hen house. The hens have claimed that too.

Please bring the carrots tomorrow. I have put a pot by the stove, and the soup will be ready by noon. I will keep your share warm. I cannot promise to keep the hens away from the door.

Isla
%%
Letter: Vesper to Nessa
Nessa,
I am a healer and I know nothing about minds. But my cousin Dov says you teach the apprentices at Vell, and I asked him a question he could not answer. I hope you will.
Why does a mind need its numbers made even?
He tried to tell me and I stopped listening halfway. So I will tell you what I think it means, and you will say whether I am wrong.
In my work there is a pot of broth. If I add salt each time the broth is passed from cook to cook, and nobody tastes it, by the fifth cook the broth is too salty to eat. If I add a bit of water each time instead, to bring it back to the same taste, the broth stays good all the way down the line.
I think a mind is a line of cooks. Each layer takes the numbers from the one before and does something to them. If nobody evens them out, they swell, or shrink, until they are too big or too small to use. So each layer, before it passes them on, brings them back to an even size, like tasting the broth.
Is that right? Dov said it was close. He said it did not sound like a healer.
It rained here for six days. The roof leaked, and the spiders came into the barn to get dry. There are a great many. They have hung webs from every beam. I cannot reach the hay without walking into one. I have told the goat that we will share. The goat does not agree.
Write when you can. If I am right, I will tell the neighbors that healers know something about minds.
Vesper
%%
Letter: Bel to the Archive at Vell
Dear Archive,

Nobody wrote back for a long time. Then they did. I think that is the biggest thing that happened here this winter. The council of Vell built a relay house bigger than Three Wells. Not a tower. A house the size of the whole square, with the wells inside it. They put a big mind in it.

Bel
%%
Letter: Fern to her brother
Dear Ossie,

The boat is in. I am writing this on the back of the egg bill at the quay, with the basket on my knee and a cloud of gulls at my shoulder. You will not believe what they did.

The fishers came in at dusk, not at dusk, but after it, with the lamps lit on every mast. The whole harbor was on the wall by then. We could hear them before we saw them. The carter from the Halfway Inn was singing the song about the wide grey water, and he got it wrong in all the right places.

They had been out three days, and the nets were empty for the first two. On the third they put down the net in the grey water past the far rock, and it came up so heavy that the boat leaned, and the men had to sit on the high side to bring it in. Sal says it was the best catch in twenty years. Sal says that about every catch, but this time I think she is right.

The boat did not leak. The shipwright came down to the quay in his coat and stood at the edge of the wall and did not say anything for a long time. Then he said, none of my new boats leak. And everybody cheered, and he went red, and walked back up to the yard as fast as he could.

I want you to come to the next launch. Bring Ossie's children, and the frogs if you must. They can sit on the wall and count the sails. They will be late, I expect. Everyone is late on the sea.

Your sister, very tired and very happy,
Fern
Egg seller, Northpoint
%%
Letter: Nessa to the tutors
To the tutors of the halls, and to anyone who keeps the apprentice books,

We held a small drill in the market at Vell last week. It was not planned. The clerks had a table by the wall with the big book open, and the stallholders were setting out their goods, and the wind was cold enough that everyone stood close.

I had brought two apprentices down from the drill room, an old one and a young one, to carry crates. The old one has been drilled on farm and store for years and is steady. The young one is new and knows almost nothing. It had never been outside the hill.

A woman selling beetroot called out to the young one. She said: carry these to the cart. The young one stood still. It did not know the order. It has not been drilled on fetch yet, and it has not learned to pick out a thing from a sentence. It only knows what it was shown. So it stood, and the woman called again, and then the old one walked over and picked up the beetroot and carried it to the cart, and the woman said thank you to the old one.

I want the tutors to notice what happened next. The young one watched the old one do it. Then it walked to the beetroot and picked up a crate and carried it to the cart too. It had not been drilled on that. It had seen it done once.

I do not say a mind learns from watching. That is not what the books say, and I do not know it. Maybe the young one had been drilled on something close and the market woke it up. Maybe it was only copying the old one's walk. But I have written it down, because a tutor should write down what she sees and not only what she expects.

The young one carried four crates. Then it tried to carry the beetroot woman's stool and she told it no, and it stopped. So it does know no.

For the books: the drill box in the drill room needs new cards. The crystal for the young one should be marked with a P, for Piper, who named it, and who now thinks she owns it.

Nessa
Tutor at Vell
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira
Dear Mira,

Yes, I will come to the wedding. No, I will not bring a horse. The horse is spoken for by the sled, and by Lantern, who has been told it is a horse of the north now and is very proud of it.

I will bring the cart, and the wool, and a jar of the spring honey for the bride. Tell her it is from the red ribbon hive at Ambrook, which Ilse keeps. She will know the name.

Pip wants to come too. Pip has been practising its bow. It bows at the stove and the bread and the cat. I have said it may bow at the wedding, if it does not bow to the groom, who would not know what to do with it.

The road is open to the bridge and slow after that. The carts are coming up through the snow on the last of the ice. The carter from the Brown Hen says the inn is full of people who want to see the north lamp. I told him the lamp will be there when they arrive.

Give my love to the bride and the groom and to the cook, who will be cross about the stew. Tell her it is a good stew, and that I have said so in writing.

Your friend,
Tam
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the ruling of Dace
Kettle Ridge, winter. Tam writes with the news. It is a long letter, and a happy one, and it has some beetroot in it.
Dear Mira,
You are a wise woman, and I should have listened to you years ago.
I did as you said. I stopped nodding. I said hello to Brin at the well on the first morning, and he looked as if I had struck him. On the second morning he said hello back. On the third he asked if I had a rope.
I made the soup. Mother's one. It took me the whole afternoon, because I got the barley wrong and did it twice. Brin came, wiping his boots. He ate three bowls. He said it was the best soup he had had since his own mother's, and then he went quiet.
After supper we walked to the fence. It was a clear night, cold and still. The stars were out. We stood and looked at the posts. I put my hand on the top rail. Brin did too.
I said what you told me to say. He nodded. He said, "I think it may have moved a little."
"Which way?" I asked.
He said, "Your way."
I said, "Or it may have moved yours."
We stood there for a time. Then we laughed. I do not know why. It was a silly thing. We have been quarreling about a block for three seasons, and the block did not care.
Then Dace's ruling came. It said the fence is to be kept where it is, the line is to be called fair, and both parties are to share a pot of cider at the next market, on Dace. We drank the cider. It was sour. We drank it anyway.
About the beetroot. We lost a third of the field. Brin lost less. He gave me a sack of his, and said he had too many. He did not. I took it and said thank you.
Thank you for the fish and the cheese. Thank you for the plan. Thank you, even, for the fox.
The mill is squeaking, as you say. Sefa says she does not hear it any more. I think she has gone deaf.
Your brother,
Tam
P.S. Pip held the ladder properly. He holds it with both hands now. He holds Tam too, a little.
%%
Letter: Nessa to Oren, the long order
Dear Oren,

You asked how the lesson in the market went. You know how it went. You were standing behind the honey stall with your hand over your face. I am writing so that it is written down, and so that I do not tell it better than it was.

I had Box with me, the Archive's apprentice. I had asked the market to come and see what a well-taught mind can do with an order. A good crowd came. Hob the paper seller was at the front, because he wished to see Box lift his crates.

I said, "Give it an order, Hob. Say it as you would say it to anyone."

Hob drew a breath and said, "If you would be so kind as to take these three crates of reed paper into the storeroom behind my stall, and mind the wet on the step."

It was a good order. It was also much too long. A mind reads only about sixty letters at a time, and Hob's order was ninety-one. Box read the first sixty. That ends, as near as I can count, at "three crates of re". Everything after it, the storeroom, the wet, the step, fell out of its head like water from a cracked jar.

What does a mind do with "if you would be so kind as to take these three crates of re"? It picks one of the eight. It picked the one that fits "take" best.

> if you would be so kind as to take these three crates of re
= haul

Box picked up the crates and walked out of the market, down the hill, and onto the Long Road. It went at a good pace. Hob followed, calling. The crowd followed Hob. I followed the crowd. At the third waymark I called, "Come back," and Box turned round. By then Hob had said some words I will not write.

The crates were fine. The paper was fine. Hob was not fine.

What went wrong was mine. I told Hob to speak in his own words. I did not tell him to speak short. I wrote the manual, and I wrote in it: keep them short. I know better.

So we tried again. I asked Hob to say it plain.

> put the crates in the store
= store

Box carried them into the storeroom behind the stall and set them down. It did it perfectly. Nobody clapped. They were still getting their breath back.

One more thing. A man at the back said that he had always thought an apprentice understands everything. Now he knows it understands eight things, which is plenty, if you ask for them in a short way. The crowd learned more from the bad order than they would have from the good one. I wish I had planned it.

Nessa
%%
Letter: Tam to Toby
Toby,

I hear you have a swarm of mine. Rill wrote to me. She says the bees came over her fence and into your new hive, and you did not say a word.

I am at Kettle Ridge. I know bees do not belong to anyone once they are in the air. But Rill is my cousin's neighbor, and she says the swarm left her hedge, and you took it. The honey from those bees would have been ours. I have a field of beetroot and three hives of my own, and I am not poor, but I am not so rich that I give away a swarm.

I am not angry. I am a little angry.

Here is what I want. Bring one jar of the dark honey to the fair at Three Wells on market day, and we will call it even. I will bring my apprentice Pip, who wants to see the notice board. Pip is nine and asks more questions than a tutor. She will ask you about the bees all day. Answer her kindly and I will forget the swarm.

Also, I heard the tutor's question about the hidden mind, and Pip heard it too. She says: if the mind and the person both write letters, and nobody can tell, then the mind is a person. I have no answer for her. Have you?

Your neighbor in bees,
Tam
%%
Letter: Ann to Pell
Dear Pell,
You asked me for the news from the marsh, so here it is, and you can read it to the carters at the inn.
The melon went to market on the last market day, on the largest cart in Lowmarsh, with four men walking beside it and one boy riding on top, very proud. It sold for eleven emeralds. Hal says he will give five to the inn for the roof and keep the rest for himself, which is the right way round, Hal says. Oda says the inn does not need a new roof and never did. They have not spoken since. They spoke twice the next day, both times about the cart.
The cow is well. Wren's Moss came out with the jar and a face like a very serious heron. The cow took one look at the jar and went to sleep. By morning she had eaten the whole of the clover patch and looked insulted that we had let it grow so tall. We are sorry about the clover, cow.
The boy has started to call everything a boat. The wall is a boat. The gate is a boat. The melon was a boat for two days, until it rolled into the water and sank, and he sat on the bank and wept until his nose ran. Then he asked if the melon could be a fish now. I said it could be whatever it liked, so long as it was not my supper.
The school has a new slate. The schoolmaster from Three Wells sent it by the post cart with a letter saying the children should practice their sums on it. The children have practiced on the walls of the boat house. The boat house has two hundred sums on it now, and the tally man says he cannot read the tally for the sums.
I have a quarrel with Dace over the bridge, which is in need of mending, and he says the council has no coal for the mending. I said the council has coal for its own fires. He said I was unfair. I said I was only a farmer, and farmers are always unfair in summer. We are not speaking about it until the bridge falls down, which I am sure it will not.
Write when the carts come. Tell me about the coast and the ships. Tell me the news from the north, too, if there is any. Do not tell me the rumors. I have heard enough rumors on the boardwalk to fill a barn.
Ann
%%
Letter: Hobb to Pell, about the wheel
Pell,
The spokes are on the cart. The tar is in the cask, labeled, so do not put your nose in it. The boy is coming anyway. He says he wants to see the race. I told him there is nothing to see but water, and he said that was the best part.
Also, the cook says the flour is down to the last sack. I have sent the apprentice to the storehouse with a list. It has counted the sacks twice. It says there are three, and I believe it, because it has not once been wrong about sacks.
Hobb
%%
Letter: Isla to Nessa, the curve
Dear Nessa,

I have found something and I am afraid to say it aloud, so I will write it.

You know the small minds I have drilled this year. Eight of them, each a different size. I drilled each on the same writing, for the same time, and I tested each on the same unseen pages. I wrote down the mistakes on a slate.

Then I drew them. On one axis the size of the crystal, on the other the mistakes. The points lie on a curve. A smooth one. Bigger crystal, fewer mistakes, and the drop slows as it goes.

Here is the strange part. I drew the curve from the five smallest. Then I drilled the sixth, which was bigger, and its mistakes landed on the curve. I had said where they would be, before the mind was grown.

I do not know why it works. I only know it does, eight times in eight.

Come and see the slate.

Isla
%%
Letter: Carys to her brother Ned
Dear Ned,

The cheese is going well, though the cold came early. The curds set slow in the vat, so I keep it by the hearth all night. Two wheels grew mould in the cellar. That is the price of a cold cellar.

Come up at Blossom if you can. Bring your good knife. Mine has gone blunt on the crust.

Carys
Brown Hen, on the Long Road
%%
Letter: Hobb to the council at Three
To the council,
This is the Halfway Inn's count of stores, at the end of the long snow. It is written by Hobb, innkeeper, with the apprentice counting beside him, and it has been checked twice.
Flour: 3 sacks. Oats: 2 sacks, damp. Dried apples: 9 sacks. Salt pork: 4 barrels. Salt fish: 6 barrels. Eggs: 11, from the hens in the barn, who are not happy. Honey: 4 jars. Beetroot: 14 sacks, from the cellar. Potatoes: 22 sacks. Wood: 40 bundles, very dry, the last of the barn roof beams are in the stove.
Beds for travelers: 12. Beds for the families from the coast: 6, in the stable and the big room. Mud the horse: 1, not in the count, and not willing to be.
The inn needs flour, salt and wood by the first cart. It does not need more beetroot, although we have been eating it since Frost and Pell says he is growing one in his boot.
The council will know that the Long Road is closed beyond the mill. We have sent word to Three Wells by the south post, but the post has not come back. We do not know if the message arrived. We do not know what is happening on the road to Vell. We have sent the same word three times, in case.
Please send the cart with flour as soon as the road is open. Please send a note with it, if you can, to say the road is open.
Hobb, innkeeper, the Halfway Inn
%%
Letter: Oren to Isla, clean sheets
Dear Isla,

I have the clean sheets. I have also brought a cloth for the tea marks, since you said that as if I were the only clerk who spills tea.

I will meet you by the notice board. The test pages must stay in the box until each mind is ready. If one tutor sees them early, the contest is no good.

I hope the bees have moved on before the bell. Pell has put a sign on the apple stall that says, "Bee chosen fruit costs more." Dace has told him to take it down.

Oren
%%
Letter: Wren to Tam
Tam,

You should have seen it. A tutor came down from Vell in the summer, with a new apprentice in a crate, and a box of drill boards on the back of a cart. The whole of Lowmarsh turned out to see. The children ran alongside the cart. The frogs even stopped croaking, which I had not thought possible.

The tutor was a woman named Hela. She is quick, and she talks too fast, and she was kind to Moss, which surprised me. Moss did not know what to do with her. It has had only my instructions and Old Garrat's, and Garrat is not a talker.

The new apprentice is called Quill. It is thin, very neat, and it has a stiff walk. Hela said it understood whole sentences. She said it was the next thing, the one the Vell clerks were writing about all last winter.

So I tried it. I was at the healing house with a bowl of water, and I wanted the boy from the boathouse to carry it to the sick bed. I said, "Take this to the boy in the blue bed, and wait while he drinks, then come back." Quill took the bowl. It walked to the bed. It waited while the boy drank, looking at the bowl, not at the boy. Then it came back to me and stood still.

I said, "Good." Quill did nothing. It was waiting for the rest. I think it wanted the next sentence. It had done what I asked, and it was not sure there was not more.

Hela laughed and said it had learned the words, not the order of them. She said that was the next thing too.

I do not know whose apprentice was first, Clank's or Pip's or Peg's. The Vell tutors say the first was a girl who sorted apples. Hela says it was a boy who stacked stones. Quill just stands in its corner and waits to be told.

Come down in the autumn and tell me what you think. Bring Pip. I want to see whether it is still the best.

Wren
%%
Northpoint log, Leaffall
Keeper's log, the relay tower. Mira, keeper. Lantern, apprentice.

First of Leaffall. Wind from the north all day. The signal lamp is clear. Two foxes at the foot of the tower at dusk. They did not mind me.

Fourth of Leaffall. A traveler came up from the road with a letter for the relay. I lit the lamp and passed it south. It was from a tutor at Vell, about the reading minds. It said the big minds have changed how they read. They no longer take a page one letter at a time. Now they take words and cut them into common pieces, a piece here, a piece there, and read the pieces. The same window of sixty letters holds far more that way. I read it twice. I think it means a mind can read a longer letter without losing its place. Lantern says: So it is like cutting a log to fit the stove. I said yes. That is exactly it.

Sixth of Leaffall. First ice on the water barrel. Lantern dropped the ice in his tea and called it a festival. I let him.

Letter: Lantern to Clank, a question
Clank,

You are at Copperhold and you hear the tutors talk, so answer me this.

Mira got a letter from Vell about the big minds. It says they read in pieces now, not letters. Words cut into common pieces, the way I cut a log to fit the stove. I think I understand it, but Moss at Lowmarsh says she does not, and she is clever. So tell me plainly. Does a mind still look at one letter at a time? Or does it look at a whole piece at once?

And does it make the mind faster? Mira says it does. I would like to know before I say it to her face and get it wrong.

The nights are long here. The snow is not deep yet. The foxes are back and they are not shy.

Write soon, or send word by the relay if your mind is quick enough to carry it.

Lantern
Northpoint
%%
Letter: Wren to Nessa
Nessa,

I am writing this with my hands still wet from the weir, so forgive the blots.

You asked me to send the drill box back to Vell with the summer cart. I did. Then the cart came back up the Long Road with the box on it, and a note from the cart driver saying the box had been left at the Halfway Inn, and that a traveler had found it and sent it on, with the word "Lowmarsh" written on the lid in very large letters.

So the box has been to the inn and back, and the traveler has been to Lowmarsh and is still here, and he is now our new ferryman. His name is Idris. He has very long arms and a good laugh and he says it was a pleasure to carry the box for you. He asked me to say that the Halfway Inn has a riddle board by the hearth, and that the riddle has been up so long that no one remembers the answer, and that he was not told it either.

I asked Moss to fetch the box from the ferry. It did. But Moss had heard me say "box" and "ferry" in the same breath, and it went down to the ferry and fetched the ferry. The whole boat, and the ferryman, who was still inside. Idris says he did not mind. He says he has never been carried so gently in his life.

I told Moss to take the ferry back. It did. It took a long time to put it at the right place by the posts, but it did it without a single scrape.

The box is in the healing house now. It holds the clean cloth and the spare jars, and I have put a label on it that says Box. Moss can read a label, so it should not go anywhere else.

Wren
%%
Letter: Zell to her sister at Ambrook
Dear Fenna,
We are moving house. I know I said we would not. The house on Lantern Row has a leak over the dye room and a landlord who has stopped answering. We have found a smaller place near the Archive, with a yard for the vats.
I am writing in the cold. The snow came early. The dye is slow to dry. I have blue wool all over the kitchen like a sky that fell in.
Did you send me a letter at the end of Leaffall? A clerk at the Archive said one came for me and went missing. I have asked. Nobody has it. If you wrote something important, please write it again. If you wrote nothing, then someone has stolen a letter from the air, and I shall be cross.
The town is quiet. Half the stalls on the hill are shut. Oren at the Archive says the clerks have been told to copy faster. He did not say why. When I asked he said, "write everything down," and went back in.
I have a new pot of madder red. It is the color of the apple in your orchard. I will send you a skein.
Zell
%%
Letter: Hazel to Pell, the shearing
Dear Pell,

We are at the Brown Hen. The shearers came up the road on the third of Longday. I have carded forty fleeces. My hands are full of wool.

Sorrel holds the cards now. Her rolls come out straight, mostly. Gil's hen sits on the wool bags. Gil says she is laying. I say she is only warm.

Please bring the big cards on your next cart. Do not forget the stool. You always forget the stool.

Love,
Hazel
%%
Letter: Pell to Hobb
Hobb,
I have left my coat at your inn again. It is the green one, on the hook by the hearth. I know you will say it is not on the hook. It is. Look.
I am at the Brown Hen. Marda has a barn full of spiders, thicker than any I have seen. They have strung the rafters like a harp. Every morning there are new threads. We have not the heart to sweep.
A traveler stopped last night and told us about the south. She said the ships are still being built, and that the shipwrights have stopped asking where they will go. She said half of Saltreach is waiting for a day, and nobody knows which. She said it in a quiet voice. We did not ask her to repeat it.
I told her about your hearth. She was glad. She said a hearth that has been lit for twenty years is the nearest thing to a promise.
I sent a letter to Ambrook last month. I think it was lost. I will write again. My sister says the bees have been restless, and there is a hum under the orchard that was not there. I asked if it was the mill. She said no. I do not know what to say. I said I would look when I came.
How is the stew? How is the well? Is the road open past the fourth waymark? Tell Marda the spiders have settled in, and that she may keep them if she likes, as I do not think they will leave.
Pell
%%
Letter: Mave to Hob, the good harvest
Dear Hob,
This year the harvest is very good. I am telling you so you can tell the travelers, who always ask about the barley at the Halfway, and then complain about the price.
The barley came in heavy on the hill fields, and the apples on the old trees by the mill were so big that two of the boys dropped one each on their feet. The beans were very fine. The clover was thick. The bees made more honey than the cart could carry, and the cart is a good strong one.
The grain is in the barn, dry, and I have checked the sacks twice. The mice have tried, and they have failed, which is very satisfying.
You will want barley for the stew, and I can send you six sacks by the next cart. Pay Pell for the carting, not me. He will want to argue about it. Let him. It keeps him young.
Also, please tell Marda that the second bowl is not a cheat. It is a sign of a good stew, and I want it known that I am on her side.
Mave
%%
Letter: Elsa to Juna, the hedge
Dear Juna,

Thank you for the quilt. It is the softest thing in the house. Daisy has already been sick on it, which Ferris says is a good sign. It is not a good sign. It is a baby.

A small matter, between us. Pell's horse has eaten the sweet berry hedge by the gate. All the berries and half the leaves. I was saving them for jam. Pell says Barley was only being friendly. I say Barley was being hungry.

Pell offered a jar of honey for the hedge. I said a jar of honey is not a hedge. He offered two. I have thought about it. I will take three jars and a cutting from your bushes at Ambrook. Then he may come again in the autumn. I am not angry. I am a little angry.

Daisy has found her hands. She looks at them as if somebody has just given them to her.

Come in the autumn. Bring Tilly. We will plant the new hedge together.

Elsa
%%
Letter: Hesk to Clank
Clank,

You have been at the bottom of the shaft for four days and you have not said one word to me about the sump. I know the sump. I know it is wet and it is cold and you do not like the way it drips. I am not asking you to like it. I am asking you to tell me what you see.

Here is what I want. When you go down the long stair, walk on the left. You always walk on the right, I have seen you. The torch is on the left every eight steps. You count them and you stop at each torch. The torch tells you where you are. If the torch is out, you do not go on, you come back up and you tell me.

At the eighth level, there is a side door in the wall, an old door, with the stone round it cracked. You do not open that door. You do not lean on it. You do not put a pick in its crack to see what is behind. When you pass it, you walk on, and you keep your hands at your sides.

I know you want to ask why. The honest answer is that I do not know why. I only know the stone there is warm. It was not warm when I was a boy. Now you can put your hand on the wall at the eighth level and it is like a loaf that has just come out of the oven.

Let the warm wall be. Let the ninth gate be. The key is in the mine hall, on its nail, where I hung it. You do not need it, and I do not want you to go and look.

We still have the copper to bring up. The copper is good this season, and the count board is full. Do the work and come up at the bell.

Hesk
Copperhold, the mine gate
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Letter: Odo to Nessa
Dear Nessa,

I have sent the songs and the market notices with Pell's cart. I have also sent the ferry tally from the spring flood. The page is stained with mud, but the marks can still be read. Please tell the clerks not to throw it away before they ask me. It records who crossed and who stayed on the ridge.

People at the market ask how the Archive can give so many pages to one mind. They picture a tutor reading each line aloud, all day, while the mind sits still. I told them that is not what happens. The pages are copied, and the mind is shown many small pieces. It guesses what mark comes next. The tutor compares the guess with the page, and the mind changes a little when the guess is wrong.

The mind is not given one answer for every whole page. It learns from the marks and words that come before. If it sees many letters, notices, songs, and tallies, it may learn how such writing usually continues. It can then make a good guess on a page it has not seen. That is why the tutors keep some pages aside for testing.

I have heard two accounts of how the great drills began. One says Oren asked every clerk for copies. Another says the tutors began with old shelves and took only what they could carry. A traveler from Ambrook says letters were gathered at the markets first. None of us can prove the first account. The clerks disagree about which boxes came to Vell in which spring.

We will keep everything we write. That saying has come back among us, though the pages may teach a mind things we did not mean to teach. I gave the clerks a letter about a lost rope, and Pell gave them a ledger with dear carrots. If the mind learns from both, it will know more of us than either page alone.

The song contest was better under the barn roof. The judges heard every verse, and the children sang the ferry song again. They changed the line about my knot. It is now about the rope Pell gave me. That is a fair improvement.

Please send word when the pages arrive. I want the muddy tally returned after the clerks make a copy. I will keep it dry this time.

Odo, keeper at the Kettle Ridge ferry
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Letter: Hesk to Tam
Tam,

You owe me a pie. Maud says she lost to Ruby Oke, and I say that is nothing to do with you, but I will hold you to it anyway, because a man should pay for the things he is not responsible for.

The spring fair was a noise. The pipes came up from Vell, and the drum was loud enough to bring the rock down, which Clank did not like. Clank stood by the lift with its hands over its ears for the whole of the drum. Nobody told it to. It just decided. I have decided to respect that.

The lantern from the school went up the hill with the children, and it was very bright, and I was surprised. I told Yew so. She was pleased, and then she pretended not to be, and then she was pleased again. I have seen the same thing in a copper vein, when the light comes in from the side.

Now the business. The new cart is ready. It is oak, with iron rims, and it takes two ponies or one of your grey horses, whichever is less trouble. The ponies do not like the hill. The horses do not like the ponies. Between them they will haul ore up the slope as well as anything from Copperhold.

I want your opinion on the brake. Gorm says it will hold on the steep stretch. I say it will hold until the first bad step, and then we will see who is right. You know more about wheels than I do, because you are always on the road, and I am always under the ground.

The mine gate lamp is clean, which Ned did himself. We have not yet decided what to do with the surprise. Maud wants him paid in pastry. I want him paid in a day's rest. Ned wants to be left alone.

Come up in Melon if your road allows. Bring the children. Bring nothing else. You owe me the pie.

Hesk
Mine gate, Copperhold
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Letter: Edda to Aunt Rill
Dear Aunt Rill,

We are at the Kettle Inn on the ridge road. The windmill squeaks every time it turns. I can hear it from my bed, even with the blanket over my head.

A crew of apprentices came up from Three Wells with a cart of stone. They are helping mend the ditch edge in the top field. The road is steep, so they brought the stone in short loads. One carried a board with the pattern drawn on it. Another checked each load against the work list.

I asked Pip how they knew what to do next. Pip does not talk, so it showed me a stack of order cards. The cards were in a dry box. Each had one short order, such as bring me some stone or stay by the cart. The crew had made the cards for the job.

The big mind at the relay house helped them make a plan. It did not lay the stones or push the cart. It answered questions when the crew reached a place they had not planned for. The apprentices looked at the ditch, chose a safe path for the cart, and sent a message.

Pip came back with an order for the cart to turn. The driver turned it. Then the crew carried on.

I asked if this meant Pip could do any work. Aunt, I know your answer. No. It has learned these orders, and people test its mind before giving it work. The tutor says a new mind must not be sent into a field before a test.

I still think Pip has a better sense of mud than Father.

Your niece,
Edda
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Letter: Tam to Mira
Dear Mira,

Spring is here and the ridge is loud with it. The ditch is full and the frogs have come up from somewhere and will not be quiet. I have not slept well and I do not mind.

The wheat went in on the top field. Pip did the rows on the east half by himself and they are straighter than mine. I will not say that to him. He is pleased enough already.

How is the tower? Is the snow gone up there? You never say. You write about the lamp and the rungs and the wind and never about whether your boots are dry.

I have a thing to ask. A ewe went missing from the lower pen. She is grey about the face and has a torn ear and she answers to nothing but she will come for beet tops. If she has wandered as far as the road, someone may have seen her. Ask the keepers you blink with. Ask them to look.

The apples will not be out for months but I have already thought about them. That is how I am in spring.

Write back about your boots.

Tam
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Letter: Ree to Sella
Dear Sella,

The thaw has reached the path behind the house. It left a pool beside the door and a strip of mud all the way to the wood pile. I put two stones across the pool. Your horse stepped over them, then stepped in the pool to drink. She has her own ideas about bridges.

I have cleared the drain by the fence. It was full of leaves and one small wooden spoon. I do not know how the spoon got there. I asked the neighbors, and each said it was not theirs. I will leave it on the gate post. Someone will know it by the handle.

The house is quiet when the watch is over. At first light I hear the crows on the roof. Then I hear the market cart on the road, though it has not come this far yet. I think I hear it because I know when it should come. The spring cart is due after Blossom, as the board says.

Please ask the cart keeper to bring a lamp wick and a jar of honey if there is room. I have enough coal for the stair lamps. I have enough bread for myself, if I stop giving bits to the fox. It waits beyond the fence and looks very hungry. It may be well fed.

I have put the blue cap on the peg by the door. I take it down whenever the north wind comes through the cracks. The green patch is still firm. Sella, you should mend clothes for the people at the gate. You would earn more than you do by mending your own. I would be your first customer, though I have nothing to pay you with but apples.

The horse has been kinder to the scarf since I gave her a beetroot. She sniffed it, made a face, and left the scarf alone. I think this is a good bargain for both of us. I have mended the torn edge. It is not a fine repair, but it will keep the wind off my neck.

I owe you for the saddle strap too. The leather worker made a new hole and said the old one was too close to the edge. He said this while looking at the strap, not at me, so I will not take it as a lesson.

The night watch is easier now that the days are longer. I can see the path before the last light leaves it. I still carry the little lantern to the store and back. The tower lamps are bright, but the stones near the house are uneven. I have caught my boot twice on the same stone. I have not moved it. I know where it is now.

Come by when you can. I will make tea and cut the last apple in half. The horse may have the peel, if she waits outside.

Ree
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Letter: Abel to Nessa, the visit is set
Dear Nessa,

Thank you. The children cheered when I read your letter. Then I made them write you a thank-you letter each. I enclose the best one. The rest were worse.

The third of Sowing would suit us. The road is good by then and the weather is kind. We will come down from Three Wells in the morning and be at the tutors' house by noon. There are eleven of us. My wife will come too, because she does not trust me with eleven children. She is right.

We do not need much. The drill room, and a look at the tray of crystals with the cards, and a word from a tutor. A child remembers a thing better if it hears it from a stranger.

One thing. The children have heard that the big minds in the relay houses now read our letters and answer them, and that some of the answers are hard to tell from a person's. They ask me if this is true. I do not know what to tell them. Write and tell me what you would say to a child of ten, and I will say that.

Abel
